Origins
by Redheadlass
Summary: Origin story for OC Jessie. Takes place in Season 3 between Episodes 4 and 5. Spanking in later chapters.
1. Chapter 1 - Beds Are Burning

When I woke up, I was surrounded by fire. It sang through me, poured from me. Everything was ablaze, but I wasn't. I was naked and surrounded by smoke, ash, and flame. Heat pounded through me and I reveled in it, felt it, pushed until the haze of pleasure faded.

I sat in the bed, staring at my room. This had to be a dream. There was no way it was real. I tried to wake myself up, but nothing happened. I slowly came to realize that I actually was awake, and that's when panic hit.

I got out of the bed and ran from the room. "Mom?" I yelled. "Dad?"

I ran down the hallway to their room, pushing through the burning door, the flame never touching me. There were two lumps in the bed, burning black. I took a horrified step backwards and then another. I turned and ran downstairs just as the front door shattered in and a firefighter burst through. I ran to him and he scooped me up as the fire poured down the stairs after me in a stream.

The firefighter carried me outside and wrapped me in a blanket, depositing me with the EMTs. There was a bustle of activity around me until the EMTs figured out that there was nothing wrong with me externally. They hustled me into an ambulance and pulled away from the house. I panicked again.

"No!" I screamed as we pulled away. "No! Mom! Dad! Stop! Stop!" The ambulance didn't stop. Something poured out of me and then the inside of the ambulance was on fire. The EMT in the back with me was screaming. The one in the front hit the brakes. As soon as the ambulance stopped moving, I pushed past the EMT and out the door and ran.

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**Child Disappears after House Fire**

By Rick London | July 12, 2007 | Knoxville, Tennessee

_A child disappeared after her house caught fire Wednesday, killing both of her parents. Jessie Elizabeth Markson, age 11, was the only survivor of the fire._

_The fire broke out at 10:10 p.m., according to KFD District Chief Fred Strom. The flames were extinguished about 20 minutes later._

_Strom said the girl was placed in an ambulance to be rushed to East Tennessee Children's Hospital. The girl had no outward signs of injuries, but may have been suffering from smoke inhalation._

_The ambulance caught on fire itself shortly after leaving the scene with the girl. In the panic, the girl disappeared._

_Firefighter John Sheldon reported that he found Jessie naked on the stairs when searching for survivors as they fought the blaze. EMT Mary Rothman reported that the girl was screaming for her parents shortly before the fire started in the ambulance and then pushed her way past Mary before running into the night._

_If anyone has any information about the whereabouts of Jessie Markson, please contact Knoxville Social Services or Knoxville Police Department._

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I'd found a cave to hide in. At least I wasn't cold. Fires sprang up all around me unexpectedly, with no warning except a pressure at my temples and the back of my skull. Then I'd feel a sort of release and something would be ablaze.

At least in the cave, there was nothing to really catch fire. Rock just didn't burn like that. After fleeing from the fire, I'd stolen some clothing off of a clothesline as I headed towards the mountains. Then I'd had to do it again when I had accidentally set the clothes on fire while I was asleep. I was on my third set of clothes, this one an ill-fitting set of flannel and jeans that some campers had left out to dry.

Now I knew how my house was set on fire and how my parents had died. Tears dripped down my face again. I hadn't been able to stop crying since I'd realized that I was the one who had lit the house on fire. I was the one who had burned them in their bed. It was all my fault. And somehow, I was immune to the fire.

I had no idea where it had come from or how to control it or if it could be controlled. As I stared at the wall of the cave, I felt the pressure and then the burst and a mossy rock flamed until all the moss was gone.

I leaned my head back against the cave wall and cried.

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**Thefts Reported by Smoky Mountain Campers**

By Mallory White | July 20, 2007 | Knoxville, Tennessee

_Thefts of food, clothing, and blankets have been reported by campers near the Cades Cove area of the Smoky Mountain National Park. No suspects have been apprehended, but camper Marsha Billings of Tampa, FL reported getting a glimpse of the suspect and that it might be a child._

_Campers are encouraged to lock up their belongings at night while this case is under investigation._

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I'd figured out how to block the fire from just coming out of me. It was kind of like when you had to pee and you just held it. Similarly, at night, if I dreamed about fire, something had burned when I woke in the morning. I didn't dare leave the cave for long and I was going through a blanket a night.

I was stealing from the campers, but I knew it wouldn't last long. Eventually, someone would catch me. I didn't know what else to do. I couldn't control the fire. The more upset I was, the more panicked, the harder it was to control. In fact, once I held it in for an entire day and by the end, I was itching with the need to set something on fire. I set a rock on fire in the middle of a stream before I went to bed, just to make myself stop itching. The fire was so strong that it spread out over the top of the water, too. Steam had filled the air.

I was terrified, guilty, miserable, and completely and utterly lost.

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**Fire Reported near Cades Cove**

By Rick London | July 25, 2007 | Knoxville, Tennessee

_A fire was set in the forest near Cades Cove last night. Rangers put out the blaze before it did damage to any of the historical structures, but several trees were destroyed by the flames._

_Police have no suspects at this time._

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Stupid, stupid, stupid. I'd been trying to hold it back while I crept into the Cades Cove area to try to steal some fresh water from the stores there. I'd managed to make it the entire day before and all through the night, only by waking every time I felt any kind of itchiness or pressure. I'd waited until dark to head towards the cove, but a bird had startled me by flying out of the bushes and I'd let go of the flame, setting that very set of bushes on fire.

Then I'd just run as quickly as possible back to the cave. I could see the fire from where I was, and it called to me. Instead of dying out like all the others, it built and built, pleasure singing through me, just like when my house was on fire.

Oh, no! I tore myself away from the blaze and covered my head in a blanket, weeping. It wasn't fair. Why was I cursed with this?

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I was exhausted. I'd been keeping myself awake for days, trying to control the fire and the desire to set it, trying to keep from setting anything on fire by accident, trying to stay away from the rangers who had finally found my cave, albeit without me in it.

But now they were tracking me. There were two of them. One of them had short, dark brown hair. The other was taller and had longer, slightly sandier hair. They didn't dress like park rangers, but who else would be looking for me?

I wasn't very good at sneaking around in the woods. I'd never done it before now and the only reason that I had been able to stay ahead of them so far was because I was slightly more familiar with this area in particular.

That was over now, though. I'd moved well past the area that I knew and I was running out of options. I climbed a tree and just hoped that they'd pass under it. Then maybe I could circle back and get my stuff before moving on to a new area.

I saw them coming before I got settled in the tree. The branch beneath me was bouncing a little. I worried faintly about its stability, but I had to stop now, or they would hear me. I stiffened as they approached.

They were both moving quietly. I held as still as I could get while the taller one checked the ground. "She came this way," he said. They started to walk past the tree, and I started to release my pent-up breath when the branch under me cracked. As I fell, the tree above me burst into flames.


	2. Chapter 2 - Fires of Known Origins

My head was pounding. I tried to open my eyes but the light was too much. I groaned and covered my face with my arm.

"Hey, now," a deep voice said. "Take it easy. You took quite a fall."

Pressure built and then the release. I heard flames crackle followed by a whooshing noise. Confused, I shaded my eyes and turned my head towards the sound, squinting against the pain. I caught sight of a fire extinguisher, jeans, and a pair of work boots.

"What's going on?" I whispered, closing my eyes again. I'd never had a headache this bad. I mean, I'd had headaches my entire life, but never this bad.

"We should get her to a doctor, Dean," said another voice.

"We're in the middle of the woods, Sam. We can't exactly move her right now."

Pressure and then a burst, flames and the whoosh of the fire extinguisher.

"Besides, what are we going to do about all the flames if we take her into civilization? She'll set everything on fire."

Tears leaked from my eyes as I remembered my house and my parents; guilt swallowed me. "Just leave me here," I said, softly.

"Can't do that either," the deep voice said.

Pressure built and I tried to hold it in, but my head hurt so badly that I couldn't bear the extra strain. The release was like heaven, the headache fading back a bit. The fire extinguisher whooshed.

"How many is that?" the deep voice asked.

"Four in the last fifteen minutes. I think they started when she gained consciousness," the other voice said.

"My head hurts," I whined.

"All right," said the deep voice. Then a hand was behind my head and neck, supporting me as he gave me a couple of pills and some water. "Swallow."

I obeyed and he laid me back down. The pressure built again, but more slowly. I let it go. The fire extinguisher whooshed again and again. After a while, the pain started to ease a little. "Who are you?"

"I'm Dean," said the deep voice. "This is my brother Sam." I turned my head slowly again, squinting my eyes and then opening them when the light didn't hurt them as badly as it had.

We were in a clearing that I hadn't been in before. They must have moved me after I fell. The short-haired one was sitting on a fallen tree about five feet away from me. The tall, longer-haired one was standing with the fire extinguisher at the ready.

"What's your name?" asked the short-haired one. From his voice, he was Dean.

I didn't trust them. I had no idea why they were here. "Megan," I answered.

The two of them looked at each other. "All right, Megan, what's your last name?" Sam asked me, taking a seat next to Dean on the tree. I noticed that he was still ready with the extinguisher.

"Ma… uh… Matthews," I stuttered. Pressure started to build, but the headache wasn't gone enough yet for me to hold it back. "Oh… oh… oh, no!" Flame burst next to Sam on the tree. He calmly stood up and put it out with the fire extinguisher. Then he sat back down next to his brother, and both of them regarded me.

"Sorry," I whispered. I tried to sit up, but my head screamed at me. So instead, I rolled onto my side and rested my head on my arm. "It still hurts too much to hold onto."

They shared another look. "Well, that's interesting, Megan, because we're actually looking for a little girl named Jessie Markson whose house caught on fire a couple of weeks ago and she has been missing ever since. Have you seen anyone like that around here?"

A bit of panic flared within me, and suddenly, the ground in front of me was on fire. I gasped but Sam just put it out. I started to feel safe for the first time in days. "I… I'm Jessie," I admitted.

"Thought so," said Dean. "We talked to everyone in town. You want to tell me your side of the story?"

I flushed. "I was having a dream about fire and when I woke up the house was on fire, but I wasn't. I could feel the heat, but it didn't burn me. My… my parents…" I started crying, and the headache flared back to life. Pressure, release, the whoosh of the fire extinguisher.

"Ok, we know about your parents," Dean said softly. "What happened next?"

Through my tears, I said, "I ran. I ran and I stole things. I came to the forest because there are no people here." I cried harder. "My parents… I killed them."

I rolled onto my stomach, my head pounding, and buried my face in my hands. The whoosh of the fire extinguisher was almost constant. Someone put a hand on my back, picking me up, and holding me close to them. "I'm a monster," I wept into his chest.

"Shh, shh," Dean said. He sat back down on the tree and hugged me. I wrapped my arms around his neck and cried myself to sleep.

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When I woke up the second time, I was still in his arms. Dean had slid down to sit on the ground and was leaning against the tree trunk. Sam sat next to him on the tree.

When Sam saw my eyes open, he said, "I'm going to ask you a few questions to make sure that your head is ok. All right?"

I nodded slowly. My head didn't hurt nearly as bad this time, although it still ached.

"What's your name?"

"Jessie Markson."

"Where are you?"

"In the Smoky Mountains National Park near Cades Cove, unless you guys moved me."

"What happened to you?"

"I fell out of a tree."

"What's the date?"

I squinted my eyes. "I don't know. I've been in the woods for like two weeks. Duh."

Sam smiled. "Looks like your brain isn't too damaged, then. I'm going to ask you that every time you wake up for a while."

The pressure started to build in my head, but this time I was able to hold it in.

Dean let me get up, and I slowly got to my feet and sat on the tree on the other side of Dean. "Jessie, we want to help you. It's obvious that you didn't set the fires on purpose, so we want to help you get it under control and get you into the hands of some people who can teach you how to control it. To do that, we need to know some more about how it started. Can you think of anything else that happened that day that might be related?"

I blushed bright red. "Uh," I stuttered. "Well…" I stared at the ground. Sam and Dean looked at each other and then looked at me. Dean knelt up and put his hand on my shoulder.

"It's ok, Jessie. We've heard it all before."

"Ok, it's just... Well, you're both guys."

Sam cocked his head to the side. "So?"

"Well, I just… uh." The baffled looks on their faces weren't making this any easier for me. Finally, I blurted, "I got my first period the same day that the fires started."

They both leaned back in astonishment, and then Sam hid a smile before saying, "All right. What else can you tell us?"

I shrugged. "I dunno."

Dean said, "Describe what happens when a fire is about to start."

So I told them. I told them about the pressure and the release, and being able to hold it in, and the itching if I held it in too long. I told them that if I didn't pay attention to it or if I got upset, then I'd lose control of it. I told them that as long as I lit a fire before going to bed, I was able to hold the fire in during the night.

Sam asked me if I'd heard about anyone in my family that had anything weird, like mental health issues or problems with the law or anything like that. I shrugged and told him that my aunt on my mom's side had been bi-polar and my grandma on my dad's side had been locked away in a mental institution since he was born. I didn't see how that could equal me getting this curse, though.

"Any tragedies occur around you when you were a baby? House fires? Anything like that?" Sam asked, looking at Dean meaningfully. I shook my head. "How about sudden success stories in your family?" I shook my head again. They looked relieved.

"All right," Dean said, standing up and brushing off his jeans. "Are you in good enough shape to hold it in right now?"

"Yes," I said warily.

"Let's get you to Bobby's then."

They led me out of the woods, into Cades Cove where they had parked their car. It was this old-style muscle car, black and shiny. My dad would have loved it.

Dean tilted his head at me. "Don't you light any fires in my baby. Got it?

I looked at him indignantly. "Yes," I said.

"If you feed the sudden need to light something up, you tell me and we'll stop."

"Ok," I said. He stared at me for a minute longer, while Sam grinned behind him. Then Sam opened the back door of the car for me and I got in.

We were driving out of the cove when it occurred to me to ask, "Who's Bobby?"

"Bobby is an old friend of the family. He knows a lot of people who can help you and he'll find someone who will teach you how to control these new abilities," Dean said.

"You mean this curse," I muttered.

"Don't call it that, Jessie," Sam said. "It may seem like a curse now…"

"It may seem like a curse now?!" The tight knot in my stomach snapped. "I killed my parents. I burned down my house. I set fires out of control. It's a fucking curse!" The pressure in my head pounded and I lost control. _Oh fuck, the car_, I thought and coming up onto my knees, I pushed the pressure out the window.

The trees tops exploded into flame. Startled, Dean swerved on the two-lane road barely stopping the car before it hit the rails and went over the edge of a cliff. On my knees, I pressed my palms into my temples and sobbed, curled up on the seat. The trees burned behind me.

Dean asked, "Can you put it out?"

"I don't know," I wept, sobs wracking my stomach.

"Jessie, stop it! Try to put it out."

I just wept. Dean reached over the seat and grabbed my arm, his voice sharp. "Jessie! This is your life now. Take some responsibility. Concentrate. Try to reduce the damage you're doing. Jessie!"

I uncurled, stared out the back window at the burning trees and thought about putting them out. "I don't know how. I don't know how to even start."

Sam asked, "How did you light the fire?"

"There was pressure, and I just pushed it away from myself."

"Try pulling the flames back into yourself."

"Dude, she could catch the car on fire," Dean objected. I glared at him, and then got out of the car. Tears still falling from my eyes, I stared at the trees and imagined pulling the fire back into me, like it was a rope. I closed my eyes and pulled.

The pressure poured back into me, a little less than it was when I let it go. I held onto it and opened my eyes. The trees were out. The tops were ashes, but the trunks and most of the bottom branches were still alive. Relief washed over me.

"All right, get back in the car," Dean said. "We need to get out of here."

I opened the door and climbed in. He sped off.

I curled into a ball in the corner of the backseat. Once we were moving steadily again, Dean glanced into his rearview mirror.

"Hey," he said. "Seatbelt."

"What?" I asked, shaken out of the daze I'd gone into.

"Put your seatbelt on. You never know what's going to happen and you're not dying on my watch."

I sighed heavily. "It's not like I don't deserve to," I whispered, not moving. The two of them looked at each other, then Dean pulled over into one of those little outlook cul-de-sacs.

"All right, let's get some things straight right now," he said. "While you're traveling with me, in my car, under my watch, when I tell you to do something, you do it."

I glared at him. The pressure was building in my head again, but I held on to it tightly. "I didn't ask you to come after me," I hissed. "I didn't ask you to come charging in like a knight. I was doing just fine without you. I don't even know you!"

"Oh, really?" Dean asked. "You were doing just fine without us, lost in the woods with no food, water, or adequate shelter?"

"Yes!" I screamed in despair. I kicked the back of the seat. I bent my knee back to kick again when Sam grabbed my leg. The pressure in my head was almost unbearable. I yanked my leg back and Sam let me. I jerked open the car door, fully intending to run, but instead, the pressure burst out of me. At the last second, I aimed it at the waterfall at the side of the road, which went up in a giant plume of steam. I poured all of the fire into the water, crying the entire time, collapsing to my knees as the pressure left me.

Sam got out of the car and helped me stand up. He wrapped his arms around me. "It's not your fault, Jessie. You didn't ask for this. You didn't intend to kill your parents. You are just as much a victim as they are." I sobbed into his shoulder.

I heard the door to the car close and then Dean was there too. He put his hand on my back. "You are not at fault. All you can do now is learn to control it. You don't deserve to die. You're not a monster."

"My parents, my house," I whispered. "My cat."

"Not your fault, little girl," Dean soothed. "Let's get back in the car. Come on."

Sam passed me to Dean and then opened the car door. Dean helped me into the car behind Sam's seat and fastened the seatbelt around my waist. I hiccupped and hugged him. "Thank you," I said. "Thank you for finding me."

"We're going to get you some help," Dean said as he shut the door.

I was exhausted, again, still. I leaned my head on the door. Sam and Dean had moved away from the car and were talking heatedly by the waterfall. I worried slightly, but was too tired to do anything more than watch them. I fell asleep before they got back into the car.


	3. Chapter 3 - A Hard Day's Night

There were no more incidents with me losing control of the fire that day. We drove for ten hours until we were in the middle of Missouri when we finally pulled over for the night at a cheap motel. The pressure was a dull throb at the back of my head by then.

Sam unlocked the room and went in. I followed slowly with Dean on my heels. They dumped their bags on the beds while I dropped into a chair. Dean rubbed his hands together. "I'm going to run out and get Jessie some clean clothes that actually fit her. You know what size you are?" he asked me. I nodded, and he had me write them down. Then he turned to Sam. "You think you can handle getting her a roll-away bed in the meantime?"

"Sure," Sam said. I rubbed the back of my neck.

"Uh," I said, "I need to, um, set something on fire before I go to sleep for the night."

"Don't worry about it," Dean said. "We'll take care of that last. In the meantime, you shower and get ready for bed. I'll be right back." He shut the door and was gone.

I looked Sam. "What am I supposed to sleep in?"

An hour and a half later, I was clean and wearing one of Sam's t-shirts. I was sitting on the roll-away bed going through the jeans and t-shirts that Dean had picked up at the local Wal-Mart. Most of the shirts were pink and not really my style, but I wasn't going to argue. He'd apparently sweet-talked some woman there into helping him, so he'd actually managed to come back with everything I needed, including a training bra. I flushed red when I saw it.

Dean stood proudly watching me as I picked through the clothes. He looked more mussed than he had when he'd left and I suspected that the woman may have helped him with more than just getting girls' clothing. "Thanks, Dean," I said with real feeling. "Just so you know, I don't usually wear pink, though."

"Girls like pink," he said, frowning a little.

I shrugged. "I know, but it clashes with my hair." I tugged on a lock of my red hair. "Girls like blue, purple, and green, too, you know." I smiled at him. "But seriously, thanks for the clothes and the backpack and the hoodie."

"You ready to go to bed?" Sam asked. "The motel has a swimming pool that you can douse your flames in."

"Uh, yeah," I said. I pulled a pair of jeans on under Sam's super-long t-shirt and followed him out to the pool. "You know, it's easier if there's something I can actually burn in the water."

"Like what?"

"Wood is best, but also cloth or paper. The longer it burns, the better. Dousing doesn't work that great."

Sam looked around. There was a diner attached to this motel, and the diner had a fireplace. Even though it was the end of July, there was still wood stacked at the end of the building, ready to go in a fire. He went and got about ten pieces and put them in the middle of the pool.

I braced myself and started to concentrate on the firewood, but Sam said, "Wait. Let me get the fire extinguisher" and headed back towards the car.

I rolled my eyes. I'd been doing this for a couple of weeks now. The pressure wasn't that bad, and it had been let off a couple of times already. I pointed the pressure at the wood and just let go.

The wood whooshed into a high fire, the force of the flame pushed one of the logs too close to the side of the pool and set one of the old lawn chairs there on fire. I panicked and ran towards the chair, intending to push it into the pool to put it out.

"Jessie, freeze!" Dean said. I ignored him and shoved the lawn chair towards the pool, but in my panic, I pushed it too hard and before it toppled into the pool, it hit another chair and lit that one on fire, too. I reached for that chair, but Sam pushed between me and it, putting out the fires with the fire extinguisher.

Dean grabbed my arm, pulled me away from the pool, and shook me. "What the hell were you thinking?" he demanded. I burst into tears.

"I'm immune to fire," I sobbed.

He looked around, and so I did too. A bunch of people had come out of their rooms at the commotion. Sam was holding the fire extinguisher and talking to a woman in front of the office. All of the wood I had set on fire was gone and so was the pressure.

"Get back in the room," he hissed at me. "Sit on your bed. After we get this straightened up, I need to talk to you." He pushed me towards the room and I went without further argument, wiping the tears off my face with my hands.

I went back in the room, but instead of sitting on the bed, I watched out the window. Sam and Dean talked to the woman from the office. Dean fished the burned chair out of the pool and dumped it and the other chair into the hotel dumpster. Sam shook the woman's hand and then went to talk to a couple of the people who were still standing outside.

When I saw them heading back to the room, I quickly shut the curtain and sat down on the roll-away bed. Neither of them looked happy when the door opened.

"What happened?" I asked. "Am I going to jail?"

I saw Sam hide a smirk, but Dean still looked mad. "No, because no one saw you actually set anything on fire. You and Sam basically looked like heroes to everyone else because what it looked like is that the fire started on its own and you were trying to put it out."

"Oh," I said, greatly relieved. "Well that worked out then." I leaned back on the wall.

"No, it didn't work out, little girl," Dean said, his face thunderous. "Sam told you to wait for him, and instead, you went ahead and set the fire anyway. I told you to freeze and you ignored me, which caused even more destruction.

I huffed. "Well, I'm sorry, but I've been doing this longer than you have. I think I know better than you do what I can and can't do. I was in no danger! I'm immune to it! I walked out of a burning building completely ok!" By the end, I was yelling.

Dean came toward me quickly and I scuttled back on the bed. When my parents had gotten that look in their faces, I was in serious trouble. I didn't think that Dean would do anything to me, but I couldn't be sure.

"That is not the point, little girl," Dean ground out. Sam looked alarmed.

"Dean, why don't you take a break?" Sam suggested. "Let me talk to her for a minute."

Dean glared at me before he said, "Fine," and walked away from me to stand on the other side of the room.

Sam had a hard look on his face when he sat down on the bed. "Jessie, you may be immune to fire, but other people are not."

I huffed again. "No one was in danger! Everyone was in their rooms and the pool is in the middle of the parking lot."

"Yes," Sam said. "This time. The problem is not this time. The problem is what might happen next time or the time after that. Do you understand?"

I stared at him. "No," I said flatly, even though I was pretty sure where he was going with this and my conscience was agreeing already.

"Fire is dangerous. You know this," he said with a meaningful expression. "You set something on fire and then something else catches and something else catches. It would be very easy for an entire motel to go up in smoke, killing people, destroying property, just because you didn't take simple precautions beforehand, like having a fire extinguisher on hand. Is that really that hard to understand?"

I flushed. "No," I said.

Dean came back over and I looked up at him. "You need to listen to us. You need to trust us and stop when we tell you to stop. It's that simple."

"Ok," I said, dubiously.

He squatted down so he meet my eyes on the same level. "Let me make it clearer for you," he said. "The next time you disobey one of us or ignore something we said, you're going to get a spanking."

"You can't do that," I said, horrified. "You're not my dad."

"I can, and I will. While you're with us, we're your guardians, and for the entire time you're with us, you'll obey us, or you'll be punished. Got it?"

I stared at him, feeling like I didn't really have a choice. "How long until we get to Bobby's?" I asked. I knew I needed help, and they'd said Bobby's was where I would get it. If I could just make it there, I'd be out from under this sentence.

"We're about seven hours out," Dean said.

"Fine," I said. I only had to make it until the next day.

"Then let's set some ground rules," Dean said. "They're pretty simple. Do as we say when we say it. Do not light fires without the appropriate safety equipment. Do not light fires without us knowing about it. Tell us when you need to start a fire. Always be honest with us. If you lie, it's double whatever the original punishment was."

"Ok," I whispered.

Both of them relaxed, although I couldn't now. What the hell had I gotten myself into?

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The next morning passed without incident and we reached Singer Salvage Yard by around three in the afternoon. I only had to ask Dean to stop twice so I could burn something, and Sam was there with the fire extinguisher both times. To be honest, it was such a relief having help to handle it that I didn't mind the possible sentence hanging over my head.

I hid behind Sam when they knocked on the front door. A grizzled middle-aged man opened the door and basically growled at them. I nervously took a step back, but the two of them took it in stride. Dean reached back and pulled me in front of him.

"Bobby, this is Jessie. The pyrokenetic we told you about," Sam said.

I stared at Bobby with wide eyes. This was the person who could help me? He didn't look like he could possibly know much about… what did Sam call it… pyrokinesis.

Bobby looked me up and down. "Well ain't you a pretty one," he said, smiling. "Come on in."

The house was a major wreck. My mom would have been appalled. Hell, my dad would have been, too. He was always on me to keep my room clean.

"You're going to stay here for a while," he told me as he led me up the stairs. "I've got someone coming out to show you how to better control those new abilities of yours. Her name is Bree Sargent, and she's the best there is at controlling fire." Something about his manner completely relaxed me. I felt just as safe with him as I did with Sam and Dean.

"Are Sam and Dean going to stay here, too?" I asked. The sooner they left, the sooner I wouldn't have their edict hanging over my head.

"That's up to them," Bobby said. "They're always welcome. Anyway, you can stay in this room." He opened the door to a small room with a bed, a dresser, and a small desk in it. "I sleep in that room just down there, so you can find me when you need me."

"When will Bree get here?" I asked, going into the bedroom and putting my bags down.

Bobby shrugged. "She'll be here tomorrow morning, right after breakfast, to start working with you."

"Ok," I said, sitting on the bed. Bobby sat down at the chair at the desk.

"Now listen, little lady," Bobby said. "There's some rules for staying here."

I sighed resignedly and kicked the bottom of the bed with my heel. I should've known it wouldn't be that easy. "Are they the same rules Sam and Dean gave me last night?"

Bobby looked taken aback. "Probably similar. What rules did they give you?"

"I'm supposed to do what they say, not light fires without telling them, make sure I have safety equipment when I light fires, and tell them when I need to start a fire. Also, no lying."

Bobby smirked a little. "Yeah, that's pretty much it. Also, stay out of the salvage yard. It's dangerous out there. The boys are going to dig you a fire pit in the yard, so you'll have that, but I don't want you in with all of the cars in the salvage yard. Understand?"

"Ok, Bobby," I said. I looked at the floor for a second, but then I had to ask. "They said they'd spank me if I didn't follow the rules." I looked up at him with wide eyes, the question unasked on my lips.

"Well, that's a last resort, but do your best to behave, ok? Now, you got any family we can send you off to when you've got this under control?"

I thought about it. I was an only child. My mom's sister had committed suicide under some unfortunate circumstances. My grandfather was in the hospital for dementia. My dad didn't have any other siblings. Everyone else was gone. I shrugged.

He frowned. "All right, we'll talk about that later. Now you get yourself settled up here, ok? You're gonna be here a couple of weeks at least."

"Ok, Bobby," I said and started unpacking.


	4. Chapter 4 - Hot for Teacher

The next afternoon, I stormed into Bobby's library and slammed my hands down on his desk, startling him out of the book that he was reading. "Bree is an idiot," I yelled.

"Calm down," Bobby said. He pointed to the couch and I flopped onto it. "Now, what happened?"

"She keeps talking about energy flow and meditation and a bunch of other woo-ass crap that makes no sense and I can't do it! I can't do it, Bobby! And she's treating me like I'm stupid."

"Well, did you show her what you can do?" Bobby asked me.

"She won't let me. She keeps telling me to get control of my breathing first, that it's key to fire control, to direct my energy flows, whatever the fuck they are." I put my elbows on my knees and put my head in my hands, gripping my hair as it fell over my face. "I can't fucking do it! I don't know what she's talking about!"

The pressure was building at the back of my skull. "You're glowing, girl," Bobby said, apprehensively.

"Fuck!" I shrieked. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" The pressure was too much. It was coming out whether I liked it or not. I turned and pushed it towards the window.

Bobby's lawn was on fire, and not in a small way. Flame whooshed across it, six feet from the Impala and towards the salvage yard. I heard Dean yell from outside and I ran out the back door, planted my feet firmly, and pulled the flame back into me like Sam had suggested two days ago. But I didn't know what to do with it after that. It was still too big. I ran to the fire pit, which was six feet deep and filled with wet wood, and I let the flame go there.

Bobby, Sam, and Dean came running with fire extinguishers. All three of them coated the fire until it was out. I slumped into the grass and cried.

"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm sorry. I lost it."

The three of them stood there looking at me. Then from behind me came Bree's oh-so-soft and melodious voice. "If the child would learn to control her breathing and direct her energy flows, then she wouldn't lose control."

I glared at her from where I was kneeling on the ground. "What the hell do you know about it? You couldn't start a fire with a fucking Zippo."

"Jessie!" Sam said. "Be nice."

I glared at him. The pressure was building again. "I would if she'd just prove she knows her ass from a hole in the ground."

"The child is merely overwrought. The flame enhances her anger and frustration."

"Will you stop fucking talking about me like I'm not here!" I shrieked. A piece of wood next to me lit up. Sam hit it with the fire extinguisher, and it went back out. Dean walked over to me and pulled me to my feet.

"All right, it's time for you to calm down," he pulled me into the house and deposited me in the corner of Bobby's library. "Stay there until you cool off."

I whirled around. "This is ridiculous," I ground out. "I didn't do anything wrong."

Dean took my head in both of his hands and pointed my nose at the corner. "Time out, little girl. Or would you rather go over my knee?"

I stomped my foot, but subsided. I leaned my head into the corner and just cried. Why was this so hard? None of it was fair. Why did I have to deal with it?

After a couple of minutes, Dean was behind me again, this time hugging me as I cried. He led me out of the corner and sat down on the couch, pulling me into his lap as my anger dissolved into despair.

"She won't explain anything to me, and I don't know what she's talking about. I tried, Dean; I tried."

"All right, little girl," he said, rubbing my back. "But you have to give it another try. Would it help to have a translator there, someone who can put what she's saying into words you understand?"

"Dean, right now, I don't even know if she can help me. She hasn't shown me that she can do anything but give super-vague instructions. I don't trust her." And that was the problem right there. I didn't trust her to know what she was doing, so I certainly couldn't trust her opinion on how to handle my new abilities.

"Let's try it with Sam translating, ok? I'm sure he knows enough woo-ass crap to give you something to go on." He smiled at me and I smiled back through my tears.

"Ok, Dean."

"Now, we've got to talk about something else."

I didn't like how he said that. "What?"

"Two things actually. First, please do not get fire anywhere near my baby, again."

"I didn't. She was fine," I said, relaxing. If it was just about his car, that wasn't so bad.

"Second, where in the hell did you learn to curse like that?"

I flushed. "Uh, Dad kinda swore a lot. Mom didn't like it, but I kinda picked up the habit. I tried not to do it in front of her."

Dean closed his eyes and shook his head. "Try to keep it to a minimum, please. It's not the worst thing ever, but no eleven-year-old should be walking around sounding like a sailor. People'll talk. And if you decide to point it at me, it'd better be in a respectful manner. No name-calling."

"Ok, Dean," I said.

"Let's go talk to Sam and Ms. Woo, I mean Bree."

Sam and Bobby were already talking to Bree. I glared at her before we even got off the porch. She had what my dad would have called hippie clothes, all long and lacy and flowy, in soft tans and creams. She had a bright turquoise and yellow scarf tied around her waist and another holding her long, silver hair back.

There was just so much I could set fire to, there. But I quashed that thought immediately.

I had no idea why her hair was silver. Her face didn't have any lines on it, and I would have said she was in her early-thirties if she'd had any other color hair.

When we reached them, Dean pointed at the grass by his feet. "Sit," he said.

I looked at him incredulously. "Seriously?" I asked. The look he gave me was a bit scary, so I sat. I had a feeling he was just trying to keep me calm. I hugged my knees to my chest and buried my face.

"We've got a couple of problems," Dean said.

"Is the child dissatisfied with my teachings?" Bree asked in a soft, mocking tone, as if that was the most ridiculous thing in the world.

"The child has a name," I muttered into my knees where no one could hear me.

Dean took a deep breath. "Listen, lady…"

But Sam cut him off, "Bree, if she can't learn from you then you're not going to be much help to her."

Dean nodded shortly, "Exactly. All she's gotten today is angry and frustrated, which is only making it harder on her."

I stared at her long, lacy skirts touching the ground and fought the urge that was rapidly rising in me.

"The child must learn to deal with anger and frustration if she's going to learn to control her abilities," Bree intoned. I closed my eyes. She was making it so hard to resist.

"Look," Dean said, "all I'm saying is that maybe you can break it down a little for her. She's eleven for chrissake."

"Yeah," Sam said. "Maybe use smaller words or different concepts. Just try something else. Give her some fundamentals before you go challenging her temper."

I looked up a Bree and she was mad. "If you do not want my assistance with the child, I will gladly go. I do not need to help with your dangerous firebrand."

Looking back on it later, she was probably trying to impress upon them the importance of me getting some help, but at the time, I just saw red at the insult. "The firebrand child has a fucking NAME," I said, and then I pushed the pressure at her skirts.

It was dramatic. The grass beneath her skirts went up in waist-high flames, and her skirts caught, but she simply took a deep breath and pushed her hands down at her sides. The fire went out. Just, went out. Her skirts didn't even get charred, although the grass around her had been burned to cinders.

Everyone, except Bree, was still with shock, even me. Then Dean pulled me to my feet. "Go," he said. "Go to your room."

"Dean," I started.

"Now," he said. His face was white. When I didn't go, he turned me around and swatted me on my butt, hard. "Move!"

I ran to my room.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8

I threw myself on my bed. I didn't know what was going to happen next and I was terrified. Hell, I didn't know what had gotten into me in the first place. I looked out my window to where the adults were all standing, talking. Bree now looked pleased and slightly aloof. Bobby kissed her on the cheek and Dean and Sam both shook her hand. Then she turned and headed towards her car, while the rest of them headed towards the house.

I was pretty sure she was coming back the next day for more lessons. I hadn't scared her at all.

"Jessie," Sam bellowed up the stairs. "Get down here."

I considered not moving but decided that was probably not going to make things better for me. If they were anything like my parents, not coming when I was called would get me in worse trouble, and that was not something I wanted right now. I trudged down the stairs and into the library where I faced three large, unhappy men.

"I can explain," I said, even though I couldn't.

Sam scoffed, "Really? I want to hear this."

That was new. My parents never let me explain anything, and I really wasn't sure what I could say. "Uh, she was making me really mad and she wouldn't call me by my name," I started.

"So you set her on fire?" Sam said. "Hm, perfectly reasonable."

"No," I insisted, "but I thought that if I did something drastic she might prove that she knew what she was talking about, and it worked." I tried for a smile, but the men all looked at me stonily.

"Yeah," Dean said. "I'm sure that was it." He leveled a look at me, and I knew I was in for it. "It wasn't that you lost your temper and tried to _burn someone alive_."

All color drained from my face. "I'm sorry," I whispered. "I didn't mean to."

"You didn't mean to?" Bobby asked. "I've seen you light things when you didn't mean to, and I was watching you when you did this. You thought about it. You considered it. And then, you did it. It was 100% intentional."

"No!" I said, but I couldn't explain what I meant. "I mean, yes. But…"

"I think that's enough explanation," Bobby said. "I think you'd better go stand in that corner and think about what you did."

With my head hung, I went and stood in the corner while they went to go talk in the kitchen. Had I really tried to burn someone alive? I guess I had. What the hell was wrong with me? Guilt suffused me. If she hadn't put it out, oh my god.

I was shaking when they came back into the room, the realization of what I'd done hitting me completely. I couldn't help it; I turned from the corner and flung myself at Dean, sobbing the entire time. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I can't believe I did that. I'm so sorry."

Surprised, he caught me and hugged me to him. "Ok, ok," he said, sounding a little uncertain. "You understand what you did wrong?"

I nodded violently. "I almost did to her what I did to my parents," I sobbed. "I can't believe I did that! I can't believe that… I'm a monster," I wailed.

"Come here," Dean said. He scooped me up in his arms and carried me over to the couch, holding me close to him. "You're not a monster. You're a little girl with a scary power and a bad temper. It's not the same thing. Ok?"

I nodded. "I'm so sorry, Dean," I whispered into his shoulder.

"And you can tell her that tomorrow," he said, "because she's coming back to teach you again." I groaned and then said, "If she can show me how to do that thing she did, I'll put up with the woo stuff any day."

"All right," he said. "Let's get this over with." He started to turn me over his lap, but I resisted.

"What?!" I said. "But, I know what I did wrong and I'm already sorry! Technically, I didn't even break any of your rules."

Dean frowned at me. "Technically, you did. You lit a fire without telling us about it, but even that aside, do you really think you don't deserve a spanking for trying to set _your teacher_ on fire?"

"No, Dean," I said softly, and I let him put me over his lap and buried my head in the couch cushions.

He hesitated. I don't think that he knew exactly what to do, but he did it anyway. One second he was taking a deep breath and the next, his hand was descending on my jeans-covered ass. I counted: it fell ten times before Bobby said, "Boy, you can't make an impression over jeans."

Bobby walked over, flipped me up, unbuttoned my jeans, yanked them down, and then set me back over Dean's lap so quickly I almost didn't realize what he'd done. A second later, when Dean's hand fell on my panty-clad ass though, I was sure as hell. The spanking was like ten times worse without the jeans. I shrieked. My parents had never spanked me without some other covering.

Did I say ten times worse? I meant a hundred times worse. I was crying in moments, and not just from guilt. I was only able to count another ten swats before I gave up and just lay on his lap crying. When he finished, he scooped me into his arms and hugged me again.

"Do not set people on fire, Jessie," he said softly. And then he ran a hand through his hair. "I can't believe I just had to tell someone that."

I was curled against his chest by that point, and I giggled softly. "Yes, Dean." After a couple more minutes, I climbed off his lap and pulled my jeans back up. I looked apprehensively at Bobby and Sam.

"Go clean up the fire pit," Bobby said, dragging his hand over his beard. "Put more wood in and douse it with more water. I can see we're going to need it."

"Ok, Bobby," I said, relieved at what I saw as a reprieve.

Sam stopped me as I was going out the door. "You need to work on your temper," he said to me quietly. "And how you treat people." His face was deadly serious when he said it.

"Yes, Sam," I whispered. Then he let me go.

I ran outside.


	5. Chapter 5 - Car Trouble

"Jessie," Dean said, banging on my bedroom door. "Bree's here. Be at the table in ten."

I groaned and buried my head under my pillow. I was exhausted. Bree had been working me hard all week. I'd learned how to breathe and how to meditate. She'd corrected my form over and over until I had it exactly right, and then she had me practice it again and again, intoning that having the habit ingrained would save my life one day. I bore it and tried my best.

Then she pronounced that being better connected to my body would further allow me to maintain control over the fire, and she ran me through exercise after exercise, running, jumping, climbing trees, anything to keep me moving. Periodically, she would stop me in the middle and have me practice my breathing or meditate. She'd ask me how individual body parts felt and then instruct me to concentrate on how my body felt overall while I breathed and meditated.

She frequently made statements that made me grind my teeth. "The child needs to learn patience," "The child must learn through practice," and my least favorite, "The child needs to control her temper." I would swear up and down that was she was really trying to do was to make me lose my temper, and I did, over and over.

Each time I lost my temper or got frustrated and something lit up, she would immediately put it out and instruct me to meditate, breathe, connect to my body, control my emotions. Sometimes it just made me madder and she would have to put even more flares out before I could gain enough control over my emotions to make it stop.

But it _was_ stopping. I lost my temper less and less frequently. The entire day yesterday, I had only lost my temper once, and I'd immediately stopped to meditate and breathe. Nothing flared up. Nothing exploded. Nothing burned.

My reward was the utterance that the child was growing and an allowance that today we would actually start working with fire. Then she made me run the yard.

"Jessie," Dean said, banging on the door again and startling me out of a doze. "This is the third time I've been up here. Bree's been here for fifteen minutes. You have to the count of thirty." Then he started counting.

I dragged myself out of bed and opened the bedroom door. "I'm here," I said. He stopped counting and looked me up and down.

"Get dressed and get downstairs."

"I'm tired," I whined. He raised his eyebrows on me. That's when I noticed that he had a bag over his shoulder. "Are you going somewhere?" I asked worriedly.

He ruffled my hair. "Sam and I have a hunt. Get dressed and say goodbye to us."

I inhaled sharply, but just said, "Ok." I shut the door and started pulling on jeans and a t-shirt. My heart was pounding in fear, and the pressure immediately starting building in my temples. I stopped and breathed until it back down and my heart slowed some, but I was still scared.

I ran down the stairs to see Dean and Sam collecting some things from Bobby and shoving them into their packs. "You're coming back, right?" I asked, heart in my throat.

Sam nodded, throwing his pack over his shoulder. "Should only be a couple days." He smiled at me. "You be good, ok?"

"The child is late for her lesson," Bree stated from behind me. "She must make that time up to her teacher."

"Yeah," I said. "In a sec." I grabbed Dean and hugged him hard. Then I hugged Sam.

"You be good for Bobby," Dean said.

As they walked out the door, I heard Sam laugh and say, "Remember when Dad used to say that to us?" His voice faded off.

I turned my attention to Bree. She did not look pleased. I looked at Bobby for some help. He nodded his head towards her and raised his eyebrows. "Uh," I said, "I'm sorry I was late, Bree."

She looked only marginally appeased. "You will start with breathing," she intoned, leading me outside.

I spent the morning under her tutelage, basically doing the exact same thing as I had done the day before, but getting more and more exhausted and anxious as the day went on. I wondered what Sam and Dean were doing, and I wanted to be with them, not stuck in Bobby's yard practicing how to breathe. I worried about them not coming back, and I wondered if there would be a point when they left and didn't come back. Or, if there would be a point where they shipped me off to some relative far away and I never came back. The thoughts made me feel sick.

Right before we broke for lunch, Bree had me running the yard again, and when we finally did break for lunch, I almost fell asleep leaning on my hand at the kitchen table while I ate my sandwich. I wondered vaguely if exhaustion was part of the point.

After lunch, she led me into the front yard and stated, "The child lights a fire with no control."

"Yeah, that's why you're here," I said under my breath, grumpily.

"The child must learn to control the fire, not just set it and leave. The child is not a flame thrower."

"I could be," I muttered.

"The child must treat the flame like a creation, coaxing it and stretching it to do as she wishes, connected to the flame at all times. In this way, the child gains control."

Grumpiness left me. I'd never tried staying connected to the fire, usually just pushing it away from me as quickly as possible. I stared at Bree with wide eyes. "How do I do that?" I asked, suddenly and painfully interested in the lesson.

We spent the rest of the afternoon working on it, of course starting with breathing each time. She explained the fire was like breath, a part of you, and it flowed in and out of you keeping you alive, a cherished piece. She told me to imagine the fire as part of my breath and to ease it out of me and then pull it back into me.

By the end of the afternoon, I was exhausted and completely frustrated. I imagined the fire like breath and I blew it out of me, but then it was gone. I couldn't pull it back into me. If something was already on fire, I could pull that back into me, but it just added to what was already there and pressed to get back out. It wasn't what she was describing. I didn't know how to do what she was describing.

"The child must have patience," she pronounced when I kicked the log we'd been using for practice. "The child must practice."

I glared at her. "The child can't even figure out how the hell to do it. How the hell can she practice it?"

The sun was going down by then and Bobby came out on his front porch. "Don't you think it's time to call it a day," he called out to us. I tore my gaze from Bree to look at him.

"The child owes me for her lateness this morning," she pronounced, pointing at the fence. I sighed heavily and went to run the yard.

Without Sam and Dean there, the evening was very quiet. Bobby and I sat at his kitchen table and ate dinner, which consisted of canned beef stew and refrigerator biscuits. Afterwards, I plopped down on his couch and watched TV while he did a myriad of things around his library or answered phones or checked newspapers. Rather, I tried to watch TV, but instead I fell asleep.

Sometime later, I woke up in my bed, shoes off, with a blanket over me. Bobby must have carried me up the stairs and put me to bed. The house was silent and it was dark outside. I went to the window in my room and looked out to where Sam and Dean usually parked their car, only seeing tire tracks and grass. I fretted about them coming back. What would I do if they didn't come back?

I didn't think I could stay with Bobby. He'd asked me if I had any relatives that I could go be with when I was finished learning how to control my new abilities. That meant that he, that they weren't expecting me to stay there forever. The thought scared the crap out of me.

I sat on the side of the bed. What would I do? I'd run. I'd leave and head into the city, or maybe back to the mountains. I'd been doing ok there before Sam and Dean found me. I'd be fine on my own. Right?

Having made the decision, I tried to go back to sleep. Instead I lay in the bed and stared out the window at the stars, watching fog form across Bobby's yard. Pressure built in my skull and I practiced my breathing to control it. I started fidgeting, and then I got up and started pacing. Eventually, I realized that I would probably be better off if I went for a run around the yard, or just got out of my bedroom. I pulled my shoes on and walked quietly down the stairs and outside.

The fog was heavy over the yard. I ran the yard a couple of times and then thought that I needed more distance to run. I poked my head into the salvage yard, which I knew was at least twice as large as the regular yard. I could just circle the fence in the salvage yard. Bobby had warned me to stay out of the salvage yard, but I figured he'd never find out. He was sleeping and I'd be back in the house before he noticed I was gone.

I turned the edge of the fence and started running the salvage yard. The fog seemed heavier in here. I ran until I got to a car that was shoved up against the fence, so I ran around the car figuring that really, it just made the run longer, which was what I wanted. Then I reached another car, and another. I ran around each one, but then realized that I wasn't at the fence any longer, and I couldn't see the fence. I ran in the same general direction that I thought the fence was in, but this time reached a minivan. I tried going around the minivan on the right, but found a school bus blocking the way. I turned around and skirted the other direction around the minivan. This time, I found a Dodge truck, complete with the ram on the front. I tried to go around the truck and found myself between two cars. Then I looked up and realized that cars were piled up above me as well.

I turned around to go back the way I came and realized that I couldn't see more than about three feet in front of me in the fog. I leaned against the truck and heard creaking from above me. I straightened up right away.

I placed my hand gently on the truck and walked to the front of it. I looked for the school bus that I had walked around to get to it. I had walked around a school bus, right? Or was it the blue car? Or maybe the orange one? Oh fuck, I was lost.

I fought back the tears the sprung up at that thought. I had to find my way out of here. If Bobby caught me in here, he'd kill me. I started trying to wind my way back to the house, but only managed to get more deeply entrenched in the yard. In the fog, I saw nothing that looked remotely like the fence or the garage or any of the cars I passed on the way in.

I seriously considered lighting a fire, but remembered that I wasn't supposed to light fires without telling someone, and of course, out here there was no one to tell. I looked up and realized that I had moved out of the area where there were cars piled on cars. I sat down next to a red junker and cried.

Eventually, I realized I was cold and that I might be better off inside the car I was leaning on. I went to stand up and knocked over a can of something. "Fuck," I said. The viscous fluid had splashed out of the can, but then most of it rolled back down the slight incline I was on to pool with the rest of the fluid on the ground near the can. I tilted the can back up and then kicked dirt over the fluid to keep it from spreading. I climbed into the red junker and curled up on the front seat to wait for the fog to clear so that I could find my way back to the house. I just had to hope that I made it back before he noticed that I was gone.


	6. Chapter 6 - Flicker and Fail

I'm not sure what woke me up. It was either the sunlight shining in through the windshield of the red junker or it was the sound of Bree and Bobby calling my name. Relief flooded me. "I'm here," I yelled. "I'm here." I clamored out of red junker and yelled to them over and over.

Eventually, Bobby wound his way through the cars to find me. I'd never been so happy to see anyone in my entire life. When I saw his old beat-up hat coming my way, I ran to him and hugged him as hard as I could. "I'm so glad you found me," I breathed.

"I'm so glad I found you, too, girl, but the question is what in the hell are you doing in the middle of my salvage yard?" Bobby said. Dread started to fill me. I'd been so happy that he'd found me at all that I had forgotten that I was going to be in trouble when he found me.

"I couldn't sleep and I went for a run. It was foggy and I got lost," I said, letting him go.

Bobby considered me dubiously. Bree caught up to us, looking ethereal and angelic even in the midst of all of the dirt and cars, and Bobby said, "We'll talk about it later. Let's get you back to the house and cleaned up so that you can have your lesson with Bree."

"The child will owe me more time," Bree pronounced. I sighed but figured if that was all the entirety of my punishment, it would be worth it. I held Bobby's hand all the way back to the house. Bree breezed in through the back door and I went to follow her, but Bobby stopped me.

"Take your shoes off, girl, or you'll get oil all over my house," he said.

"Like anyone would notice," I said teasingly as I obeyed. I looked at my sneakers. I must have stepped in the spill from the night before when I'd gotten out of the junker because black-brown oil was splashed all over my right sneaker and up my jeans' leg. Then I headed into the house and ran up the stairs to change into clean clothes for my lesson.

The day mirrored the day before. After lunch, Bree once again explained the idea that fire was like breath. I had to roll it out of me and then roll it back in, smooth, flowing. I had the same problem. I breathed out and the fire was gone, no longer connected to me. By the time it started getting dark, I was fighting tears of frustration and doing more breathing than fire starting in an effort to maintain control on my emotions.

Bree sighed, clearly unhappy with the struggle I was having with the lesson. It was the first sign of disappointment I'd seen in her since we'd started, and it made me feel like a failure. "Does everyone get this right away?" I asked her.

"The child is younger than most pupils," she intoned, and I knew the answer was yes.

What would happen if I couldn't gain this control? Would they hunt _me_? I shoved that thought as far away as I could and concentrated on breathing again.

I opened my eyes when I heard the Impala. Before I could get up and run to the car, Bree stated, "The child will continue breathing or will owe her teacher more time." I fought the flare of frustration and closed my eyes again, trying to breathe as instructed. "The child must learn patience even in excitement," she intoned.

I breathed and thought that if I never heard the words "the child" again, it would be too soon. I watched Sam and Dean go into the house, waving at them as they went. They waved back. "The child must learn control," Bree said patiently. "The child will begin again."

By the time she left, I still hadn't made any progress. She had me run the fence once before calling it quits for the day. I ran into the house and found Sam and Dean with Bobby in the kitchen. "I'm so glad you're back," I exclaimed, hugging them both.

Dean kissed the top of my head and said, "We're happy to see you too. Go upstairs and get cleaned up for dinner."

Sam said, "Shower and PJs," as I ran from the room to obey.

During dinner, all they talked about was the hunt they'd been on. I listened, enraptured, as they described the ghost they had hunted. It was the first I'd heard of them hunting anything besides me, and I was fascinated. I hoped that once I had my ability under control, I'd get to learn how to do what they do.

When dinner was over, I asked to be excused to go watch TV. "Now hold on," Bobby said. "You and I have something to talk about." I looked at him blankly until he said, "You're going to explain to me why you were in the middle of my salvage yard this morning."

"Oh," I said, beginning to get worried. I'd thought we'd covered it that morning. In a rush, I said, "I couldn't sleep last night so I went for a run and got lost in the fog."

"I was born at night, but I wasn't born LAST night, girl. You didn't just stumble your way into the salvage yard." Bobby said. I flushed and looked at the table. "That's what I thought," he said. "What did I tell you the very first day you were here?"

"Stay out of the salvage yard," I said softly.

"You wanna explain now why you decided to go into the salvage yard?"

I shrugged and poked at the crumbs on the table. "I dunno."

"I dunno is not a reason," he said.

I looked at Dean and then at Sam for help. They were watching me with displeased looks on their faces, and I realized I wasn't going to get anything from them. I looked at Bobby helplessly.

"I told you to stay out of the salvage yard because it's dangerous," he said. "You can get lost or hurt, and I don't want you to be either of those things. You understand me?" I nodded, looking at the table again. "Can't hear your head shake, girl."

"I got it," I whispered.

"Good, because if I catch you in there again, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. And I mean a lot."

"Ok, Bobby," I said, flushing.

"You know how to write?" he asked me. I stared at him in confusion.

"Yeah," I said, insulted. "I'm going to be in sixth grade."

"You're writing me some lines. Two hundred times, 'I will stay out of the salvage yard.'"

"That's gonna take me forever," I whined. "And I don't have any paper."

"I'm sure we can fix that. You boys got anything you want to add to that?"

Sam shook his head and Dean said, "Your rule, your call."

Bobby got me some paper from his desk and a pencil, setting it in front of me while the three of them cleaned off the table. I sighed and started writing.

After they cleaned off the table, the three of them went into the library to talk quietly. I was bored. I'd written lines at school before, mostly for talking in class, but never at home. I found it particularly frustrating that there were a million other, more interesting things I could be doing, but instead I was stuck at the table. Then I realized that I could hear the three of them in the library, and I stopped writing to listen.

"How's she doing, Bobby?" Dean asked.

"Bree says that she is better at controlling her temper and not just having flames start up randomly around her. Obviously, she can still just start fires when she wants to, and Bree is trying to teach her how to maintain connection with the flame, but…"

"But what?" Sam asked after a pause.

"She can't maintain connection with the flame. She just lets it go and that's a problem because she can't control it once she lets it go. Bree says that Jessie is the only pyrokinetic she's ever taught, but that other types of psychics haven't had any problems with maintaining connection to their powers."

I buried my head in my arms on the table. Yeah, that's what I thought. Complete failure.

"Maybe she just needs some more time to work on it," Dean suggested.

"We can't let her leave until she's got control of it. It's too dangerous. She needs to know how to set the fires, how to control them, and how to put them out."

They were silent and I wondered what the hell they would do with me if I couldn't manage to learn. I felt sick. I pulled my feet up onto the chair with me and hugged my knees, resting my head on them.

"Jessie," Dean said, coming back into the kitchen. He pointed to the paper in front of me where I'd written "I will stay out of the salvage yard" exactly twelve and a half times. I looked up at him with big eyes.

"What happens if I can't control it?" I whispered. Dean seemed to realize that I had overheard them. He crouched down next to me and looked up at me.

"Listen, little girl," he said, "I saw you out in the forest. You will get this. You figured out so much just on your own that I'm sure eventually, you will get this. Ok?" I nodded, still miserable. "Now, finish your lines and be happy that Bobby was the one who found you in the salvage yard."

Dean headed back into the library, and I bent to my lines. They started talking, but more quietly this time. Unfortunately for them, and possibly unfortunately for me, I could still hear them if I strained my ears a little.

"Speaking of leaving, did you find any information about her family?" Sam whispered.

"She ain't got none," Bobby said. "At least, none that can take her in. Her grandparents are either dead or hospitalized. There are no aunts or uncles or cousins that even know who she is. I've been calling around."

"There's gotta be someone, Bobby," Dean insisted.

"No one I can find. I'll keep looking, but I'm starting to lose hope that I'll find someone. It's starting to look like we're going to have to turn her over to the Knoxville police once she's got this under control and see if they can find someone."

"Yeah, or they'll put her into foster care," Sam said.

Foster care. The words were like a death knell. Strangers taking care of me. People who didn't understand, who didn't know what they were getting themselves into. I heard footsteps coming my way again and started writing furiously, but this time it was Sam and he was just coming in to do the dishes.

A couple hours later, after I'd finished my lines, Dean hustled me up to bed. When he opened up the door to my room, he took one look and shook his head. "You have so little stuff, how the hell do you manage to get your room so messy."

I shrugged. "I can find stuff this way," I said.

He shook his head. "Well, I can't, so pick this stuff up." I started picking up my dirty clothes, which was most of what was all over my room, and putting them in the laundry hamper. Dean picked up my shoes and noticed the blotch on the side of them.

"What the hell did you get on your shoes?" He asked me.

"Bobby said it's oil," I said. "I kicked it over when I was lost and it got all over my shoe."

"Well, that's never coming out," he said. He dropped the shoes next to the door to my room. He went over to the small desk and picked up a book I had there. "Where'd you get this?"

"Bobby's library," I said.

"Bobby say you could borrow it?" Dean asked.

"No," I said.

"Why don't you check with him before you just take his books next time?"

"Ok," I said, with no intention of doing so. If I asked, he'd say no, and then I'd never learn anything.

Dean tucked me into bed and carried the book out with him.

I lay in bed staring at the ceiling. Control. Staying connected to the fire. Flowing breath. I was tempted to try without Bree around, but knew I shouldn't. Plus, I was in the house and it wasn't a good idea. I had to figure it out.

_I ran through the woods, two men chasing me. Fire surrounded me and I tried to pull it back into me, but there was too much. I wasn't afraid of the fire, just of the men. I ran into a cave, hoping to hide, but there was nowhere to escape. I was cornered. I whirled to confront my chasers and was shocked to see Sam and Dean coming towards me, knives drawn. "No!" I said. "No! I can control it!"_

_They stopped as I took a deep breath and let it out, fire flaring on a rock in front of me and then fading. "Doesn't look like you can control it to me, little girl," Dean said. _

_Sam shook his head. "We can't let you go if you can't control the fire." _

_"I can do it!" I shrieked. "Just give me more time."_

_Sam came toward me with his knife drawn, grabbed my shoulder._

_The cave trembled and shook. Sam and I looked up and water poured from a ledge above me, flowing under me, floating me, Dean, and Sam out of the cave, and then flowing back into the cave, forming a pool in the bottom of the cave._

_I stared at the pool and then looked at Sam and Dean. Dean's face twisted, "If you can't control it, you can't leave," and he shoved his knife into my stomach._

I woke up screaming.


	7. Chapter 7 - Even Flow

I sat in front of the fire pit, breathing out the fire. It was before dawn. No one was up. I pushed the fire out and tried to hang onto it, tried to pull it back into me, but once breath left your body, it was gone, right? I hugged my knees to me, chilled despite the heat coming from the fire pit.

I stared down at my feet and saw the oil splash on my shoe. I vaguely recalled knocking over the can. The oil had flowed away but then had flowed back and settled into a pool, except of course for the oil that had gotten on my shoe.

I stopped letting my mind wander and tried breathing out the fire again. The fire pit flared but I had lost connection to it and couldn't pull it back into me. Something Bree had said tickled the back of my mind. Roll the fire out of me and then roll it back into me, smooth, flowing. She had said to think of it like breath. The dream I'd had the night before came back to me. What if I didn't think of it like breath, but more like water or oil, liquid?

This time when I breathed out, I imagined the fire like it was oil, a flow of flame extending away from me to the fire pit and connecting to the fire burning in the pit. When the flames touched, it made an almost audible click inside me. I gasped, suddenly filled with not only the flame inside me, but also the fire burning in the fire pit.

Getting to my feet, I pushed and the flame flared higher. I pulled and the flame went down. Excitement suffused me. I pushed, I pulled. I sucked the flame into me, putting out the fire. I pushed the flame out of me, relighting the fire pit. I had control!

"What in the hell do you think you're doing?" Dean demanded.

Startled, I let go of the flame and the fire pit flared. I whirled around to see Dean standing with his arms crossed, a fire extinguisher on the ground next to him. "I figured it out!" I exclaimed happily. "I can control it!"

Dean dropped his arms. "Show me," he said. He stood next to me and watched as the flame pulsed and flared, went out and re-lit. I matched the flow to my breath, but it wasn't my breath. It was my flame, part of me.

"All right," he said. "Good job. Now put it out."

I pulled the flame back into me, quenching the fire, but now it had nowhere to go. "Oh, fuck," I said, pressure building inside me, too much to control. I aimed it at the fire pit and let go. The fire pit flared into life again, but the pressure was gone. Dean calmly picked up the fire extinguisher and sprayed the fire pit, putting out the flame.

"I guess I still have things to learn," I said.

"Yeah," Dean said. "The first thing that you need to learn is to obey the rules."

Alarmed, I stuttered, "What?"

"By my count, you broke two rules tonight," he said. "Do not light fires without the appropriate safety equipment. Do not light fires without us knowing about it." He took my hand and led me into the house. I dragged my feet, but he wasn't deterred.

"But, I figured out how to control my flame," I demanded. "Doesn't that count for something?"

Dean didn't even turn around. "No," he said flatly.

"That's not fair!" I jerked my hand out of his and stomped my foot hard on the boards of the porch.

This time Dean did turn around, but only to pick me up and carry me into the house. I shrieked and kicked, but he ignored it. He carried me into the library and sat down on the couch, turning me over his lap.

Without another word, he started spanking me. I kicked harder, but he just held me across his lap without any struggle. His hand fell over and over on my pajama-covered butt until I was crying. Then he pulled me up and hugged me close to him. "It's for your safety," he said. "For our safety. You cannot be out just lighting fires in the middle of the night without safety equipment or supervision. You got it?"

"Yes," I burst out angrily. I shoved myself out of his arms and stomped across the room to fling myself in one of the chairs by Bobby's desk.

He frowned at me and got to his feet, "Listen, little girl," he started.

"No," I yelled. "I figured out how to control my fire and you don't even care!"

"I don't care?" he asked. "I care a lot! I had you show me what you could do, but that doesn't excuse the fact that you disobeyed two rules. The ends do not justify the means, little girl!"

I stood up and stomped my foot. "They do!"

Dean walked over to me, towering above me and staring down into my eyes. "You do not have control over your abilities," he said. "What if the fire had gotten away from you? What if instead of lighting the fire pit on fire, you lit the house on fire? What then? You couldn't pull it back into you, and you didn't have any other way of putting out the flame."

I stared at him, wanting to argue, but I couldn't help but picture my parents burned in their bed. I burst into tears. He hugged me to him. "The rules are there for all of our safety," he said. "You could have waited until this morning to practice or you could have come and woken us up. You're not alone."

_Not yet_, I thought and hugged him tighter.

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8

Bree was suitably impressed with my new control, but that didn't keep her from lecturing me on the exact same thing that Dean had. I hung my head as she said: "The child must practice with adults. The child does not have control yet. The child has much to learn" and other such things. The look of concern on her face somewhat eased the annoyance that I felt at being called "the child" so many times in a row. It seemed like they were always trying to impress on me how young I was.

She had me run the yard twice and breathe all morning before she finally let me practice controlling the fire. By the end of the afternoon, I was exhausted, but eager to learn how to put out the flames.

"Bree, when do I learn how to put out the fire?"

"The child knows how to put out the fire," Bree said. "The child pulls the flame back inside herself."

"I know, but…" I sighed, frustrated at how dense she was sometimes. "How do I keep it in? I pull it back into me and sometimes it just has to come right back out."

"Ah, the child wishes to know how to contain the flame," Bree intoned.

"Yes," I said eagerly.

"How does the child imagine the flame within her now?" Bree asked.

I thought about it. "It's a pool in my stomach," I said.

"And what happens when it flows out of the child?"

"It flows out of me like a river," I said.

"And when the child pulls it back into her?"

"It flows back into the pool," I said.

"What contains the pool?"

"I dunno," I said. "It's just a pool, like what a waterfall flows into or like a lake."

"And how can the child prevent the fire from overflowing that container?"

"Uh," I thought hard. "I can't. If there's too much, it just flows over the sides."

"The child would do well to think on that as she breathes," Bree stated. I sighed, closed my eyes and breathed.

Containers. What contained fire? The fire pit contained fire, but it had no top, so if the fire got to be too much, it would just flow out the top. Fires are built in fireplaces, but the whole front of a fireplace is open, so fire can just roll out of it. Even if you blocked the front, it could just roll up the chimney. Sometimes candles were in glass containers, but if you put the lid on, the fire would go out. So what contained fire, but still let it burn?

"A furnace," I said. "A furnace contains fire."

"The child must imagine it," Bree said.

I imagined the pool inside me as a furnace. "Ok," I said.

"The child must open the door to the furnace and flow the fire out," Bree stated. I imagined it, reaching the fire towards the fire pit. The fire pit caught and burned. "Now the child must pull the fire back into her and close the furnace." I did it, but it wasn't that much different than it was when I had imagined it as a pool. It was the same amount of power.

I snapped my eyes open. "It's not any different," I said. "Let's start a fire like normal people and try it with me pulling more back into myself than I started with."

Bree frowned. "The child must know the technique by heart before moving to the next step."

I rolled my eyes. "Fine," I said. "I'll try again."

8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8

After Bree went home and we'd eaten dinner, I asked Dean if we could go practice some more.

"What does Bree say?" he asked me.

I thought quickly. I really wanted to practice pulling more fire into me than I put out. "That I need to know the technique by heart before moving on. Please, Dean? I finally know what I'm doing. I just want to practice some more."

From behind his desk, Bobby frowned. "You sure you're up for it, girl? You were practically falling asleep over dinner."

That was true. I was really tired, and Bree had pushed me to breathe when I was exhausted, to learn how to control things. "I'll be ok. Please?"

Sam looked dubious when Dean looked over at him but eventually shrugged. "All right," Dean said. "Let me get the fire extinguisher."

I went outside and stood in front of the fire pit. I needed a fire that I didn't light so I could pull that fire back into me and try to contain it within my newly imagined furnace. Unfortunately, I didn't know how to light a fire without using my abilities. When Dean came back with the fire extinguisher, I came up with a plan.

"Bree says that in order to practice this, I need a fire that was set normally," I said. "I have to have more than I started with to pull back in."

Dean sighed and said, "Ok, let me start that for you. How big should it be?"

I thought rapidly. "We were practicing with the entire fire pit lit earlier," I said.

He narrowed his eyes at me. "Why don't we make it a little smaller than that considering how tired you are right now?" He started a fire that was about a half of the logs in the fire pit and stepped back.

I waited until it was burning really well. Dean was tapping his foot and looking around impatiently. "Ok," I said. "Here I go."

I closed my eyes and imagined the fire flowing out of me. It clicked into the burning fire in the fire and flared up. Pleasure flowed through me at the increase in intensity. I pushed a little, making it flare larger, and then I pulled it back into me, shoving it into the furnace.

It was too much. The pressure built at my temples and at the back of my head. I held on as tight as I could, shaking. In my imagination, the furnace door was trembling, bulging outwards. I pushed it closed, trying to contain the fire. My head pounded.

"Jessie, your nose is bleeding." Dean said, grabbing me. "Ah, damn it!" he exclaimed, letting go of me and shaking his hand like he'd burned it.

I opened my eyes. "Dean!" I screamed. My head felt like it exploded, and then everything went black.


	8. Chapter 8 - Problem Child

My head was pounding. Pressure built and then released. I heard flames crackle followed by the fire extinguisher whooshing. I groaned.

"The child is a fool," intoned Bree, disapprovingly. A cool hand touched my forehead and then a sweet-smelling cool cloth was set on my forehead.

"Can I have some water and some Advil?" I asked, my voice croaking.

"Yeah," Dean said. "Followed by an ass-beating."

"Dean!" Sam said.

"What? She endangered her own life, our lives, and set fire to the yard, knocking herself out for a full twelve hours. To top it all off, she lied about it! To me! Making me an accomplice to the whole thing!"

"Dean, that's not going to help her right now," Sam said.

I hadn't opened my eyes yet, but someone put a hand under my head and lifted it up so that I could take the pills. Pressure built and then released. The fire extinguisher whooshed.

"The child needs to learn to control the fire as she controls her breathing," Bree said. "The child continues to breathe when she faints. She must also continue to contain her abilities."

"Maybe if she hadn't tried to control so much fire that she practically killed herself," Dean started, but then stopped. I opened my eyes to see Bobby pull him aside to talk to him.

I was in the garage. It was empty aside from me, the cot I was lying on, and the four of them. Bree was sitting on a camp stool to the right of my cot with a bowl of the sweet smelling stuff on the floor next to her.

I tugged the cloth off my forehead, rolled over, and buried my head in the pillow, blocking out the light. "And how exactly am I supposed to practice that? Take a couple licks to the head now and then?"

"Sarcasm hinders the child's ability to learn," Bree pronounced as she brushed aside my hair and set the cloth on the back of my neck.

The cooling sensation felt so good, but my head was really hurting and I wanted to deal with no more of this. "Yeah, whatever," I muttered into my pillow, but as the pressure built this time, I shoved it into my imaginary furnace and shut the door.

Dean finished talking with Bobby and left the garage in a huff, with one last sharp look at me. I hadn't known him that long, but so far, I'd never seen him look that mad or that worried. "Fuck," I said under my breath.

Maybe this was the straw that would make sure that they abandoned me. Why the hell had I done it? I pushed the thought away and asked, "I've got the fire back under control. Can I go up to my room now?"

"Yeah," Bobby said. "I'll take you."

I stayed in bed for the rest of the day. Bree said that I needed the rest and that the headache would fade over time. She said I could keep taking Advil, but she wasn't sure how much it would help. Turns out, it only took the edge off. I dozed for most of the day, the headache a constant companion. I didn't do anything with the fire, and thus it simply built and built inside me.

Sam brought me lunch and dinner. I picked at the meals, not hungry because my head hurt so bad. Chewing hurt my temples and the joints of my jaw. I watched the sky get dark outside. At nine p.m., the headache had finally faded enough to be bearable and the pressure had grown so much as to be uncomfortable. I itched. I climbed out of bed and padded down the stairs, dressed in PJs and slippers, intending to ask if I could set a fire in the fire pit before much longer.

Sam and Bobby were poring over an old tome on Bobby's desk. "Nothing in here, either," Sam said with finality and shut the book. "There's got to be a way to get him out of that deal, Bobby."

"I'll keep looking, boy," Bobby said. "But I ain't got much hope." Then they both noticed me.

"Hey," I said softly, tentative about interrupting them. "I'm itchy and the pressure is kind of bad. Do you think I could go out and light up the fire pit?"

Sam nodded. "Let me get the fire extinguisher," he said. He gestured for me to come with him. As we headed outside, he grabbed up the fire extinguisher from the porch. I turned my head and saw the destruction.

It looked like the fire pit had exploded. Grass was dead and burned six feet around the fire pit and the side of Bobby's house had soot from the ground to the roof, although it didn't look like there had been any actual fire damage. I was so thankful they had been careful in where they had chosen to put the fire pit or Bobby's house could have been gone, too.

The fire pit was somewhat deeper now, with fresh wetted-down wood inside of it. Sam stood next to me while I opened the door to the flame. Oh my god, it hurt so bad. The fire poured out of me and into the fire pit, searing its way through my brain, which already felt raw and charred. By the time the flame was gone and I had shut the door, tears were running down my face. I breathed through clenched teeth trying to get contain the flame. After a couple seconds, the pain faded some, but the headache was back to full force.

Sam put out the fire and then put his arm around me. "Bree said that setting fires would hurt for a while because you damaged the pathways. She said it was lucky that you hadn't burned out your brain altogether."

I buried my face in his abdomen. "That's probably why I have a headache, too."

"Yes. Let's get you back up and into bed." He picked me up, carried me back into the house, and up to my room. He tucked me into bed and turned to go.

"Sam?" I asked. At the door, he turned to look at me. I swallowed. "Am I in a lot of trouble?"

"We'll talk about it tomorrow," Sam said, and he shut the door.

I was awake before dawn the next morning. The headache had faded back to just a reminder in the back of my skull, but I knew that the minute I opened up to the flame, it would come roaring back, not to mention the pain that the release of the flame itself would bring. I got out of bed, took a shower, and picked up my room. I felt sick to my stomach with worry.

The sun was just starting to come up when I came down the stairs. Bobby wasn't up yet and the Impala was gone. I thought about eating and decided against it, the pain of yesterday's chewing sticking with me. I wandered into the library and started looking at the volumes of books that were stacked on the shelves. Bibliotheca Daemonologica, Directorium Inquisitorum, Agrippa De Occulta Philosophia, and so many others. I pulled down a book called The Witch Hunters Bible and flipped it open. It looked like it was in English, but I couldn't make heads or tails of the words within, so I sat down on the couch and flipped through the pages, looking at the illustrations instead, which were seriously disturbing, showing people being burned at the stake, hanged, and drowned.

I flipped the page to regard a naked woman covered in snakes when Bobby snatched the book from my lap and snapped it closed. "Stay out of the books," he told me.

"I'm bored," I said. "Don't you have anything I can do around here?"

"I've got something you can do all right. I got an entire side of my house that's covered with soot and the girl who made it happen."

An hour later, I was outside with a bucket scrubbing the side of Bobby's house to get the soot off. He'd given me a scrub brush, some rags, and a long-handled push-broom so that I could reach up the house as far as possible without taking the chance of falling off of a ladder. Bobby had settled himself into a camp chair while I scrubbed, just to keep an eye on me. By the time it was noon, I had almost all of the soot cleaned off in all of the areas I could reach.

"All right," Bobby said. "That's enough for now. I'll get the rest of it with the pressure washer later."

Arms aching, I dropped the broom. "Pressure washer?" I said. "Why didn't you just let me use that?"

"Consider it me making a point," he said. "But aside from that, you're too little. Get that stuff put away and come inside for lunch. The boys should be back soon."

My heart dropped. I had a feeling that if I was well enough to scrub soot off the side of the house, I was well enough to accept any punishment that Dean or Sam wanted to dish out. I just hoped it wouldn't be too bad.

Bobby made me tomato soup out of a can and a grilled cheese sandwich. I poked bits of the sandwich into the soup and soaked them before eating the sandwich. I finished the entire sandwich, but before I could finish the soup, I heard the Impala pull up. I looked up at Bobby with woebegone eyes. He picked up my soup bowl and put it in the sink. "All right, you don't have to finish it."

"Can I go to my room?" I whispered, as if somehow not speaking loud would hide my presence.

"No, you stay right there."

The back door opened and I heard Sam and Dean tromping into the house before I saw them. "We were just finishing lunch," Bobby said. "You boys want some?"

"Nah, we ate in town," Dean said, coming into the kitchen. "How's the little pyro?"

"I'm ok," I said quietly.

"She's feeling better. I had her out cleaning the side of the house this morning. She got most of the soot off the first story. I'll get the rest cleaned up later with the pressure washer."

Dean regarded Bobby. "She well enough for us to talk to her about what she did?"

I flushed and pulled my feet up onto the chair with me.

"Seems to be."

Dean looked at me. "What do you think, little girl?"

"I still have a headache," I whispered, "but it's almost gone."

"Go sit in one of the chairs in front of Bobby's desk," Dean said. "We'll be in there in a minute."

"Ok," I said, getting up slowly and dragging my feet into the library.

They talked quietly in the kitchen for several minutes. It seemed that the acoustics didn't work backwards. I might be able to hear them when I'm in the kitchen and they are in the library, but not the other way around. That was good to know, at least.

Eventually, the three of them came into the room. Dean and Sam sat on either corner of the desk and Bobby sat in his chair behind it. I felt tiny and uncomfortable under their gazes.

Dean stared sternly at me. I felt like I was shrinking back into the chair. "You know what you did wrong?"

"I set Bobby's yard on fire and almost his house," I said. "I tried to do something I wasn't ready to and I could've killed everyone."

Dean nodded shortly. "Yeah, you did all that, but that's a drop in the bucket to the thing that I'm really angry about, little girl. You want to hazard a guess on what that is?"

I pulled my feet up into the chair and hugged my legs. "I dunno," I said softly.

"You lied to us, Jessie. Every word out of your mouth was a lie."

"I didn't lie!" I insisted. "I didn't."

"Oh really? Why don't you explain to me how what you said wasn't a lie?"

"We were practicing with the entire fire pit earlier, and she did say that I needed to know the technique before moving on!"

"So let me ask you something, little girl," Dean ground out. "Did she say that about the thing you were trying to do when we were out in the yard?"

"No, but," I started to say.

"Quiet," Dean said. He stood up from the desk and crouched down in front of me to meet my eyes. "When you ask to do something, I'm not going to sit here and have you spell out, chapter and verse, exactly what you're asking to do. I expect to be able to trust that Bree thinks you're capable of doing it and that you won't ask to do something that you haven't practiced with Bree."

"I had practiced with Bree!" I insisted.

"Really? You practiced working with more flame than you could hold within yourself?"

I flushed. "No."

"You practiced trying to hold on to extra flame rather than just control the flame that you were using?"

"No," I whispered.

"What did you practice, Jessie?"

I swallowed. "Pushing the fire out of its container and pulling it back in without losing connection. Locking that fire away when it was back inside."

"Was that what you were trying to do with me?"

"No."

"Here's the problem, little girl. You were trying to manipulate me to get what you want. You lied to me. You counted on the fact that I would trust you, and by doing so, when things went bad, it was partly my fault because I didn't question you completely and get the information on exactly what you were trying to do. People could have died! You could have died!" Dean's gaze bore into me and I started to cry.

"I'm sorry, Dean."

"I have to be able to trust you, that what you're telling me is the truth and not some made-up thing so you can have something you want without thought for the people around you."

"I know."

Dean stood back up. "I'm going to make sure that you don't forget," he said. "Come here."

I stood up and walked over to the desk. Dean pushed aside the papers and books at the front of the desk. "Lean over the desk. Put your hands right there and don't move them."

I obeyed, shaking a little and tears dripping from my eyes.

"What did I tell you was the punishment for lying?" Dean asked me.

I struggled to remember, but I couldn't. "I dunno," I said.

"Twice whatever punishment you had earned, but since the entire transgression is that you lied, we can't exactly give you twice the punishment for that." His hands were suddenly undoing the button on my jeans and then my jeans were in a puddle at my feet. I flushed.

Dean rested his hand on my lower back again and started spanking me. I shifted from one foot to another, already sobbing. Then I leaned further onto the desk, trying to escape his falling palm, until my feet were in the air and I was kicking. Dean smacked my thigh and I yelped. "Get your feet back on the floor and don't do that again," he said. I took a couple of seconds, but not too long, to steady myself. When I was once again in the position he had originally put me in, his hand started falling again. This time I didn't try to get away, I just stood there and sobbed, shifting from one foot to another and occasionally bouncing on my toes from the sting. I couldn't count how many times his hand fell.

When he stopped, he said, "Sam, hand me the hairbrush."

Sam handed Dean a silver-backed hairbrush that had been on the desk. It was Bobby's wife's hairbrush, and I knew it was going to hurt like a mother-fucker. "Please, Dean," I begged. "I promise, I won't lie again. I swear."

Dean ignored me and sat down in the chair I had been sitting in before the spanking. He pulled me over his lap and tipped his knee so that my butt was in the air. He brought the hairbrush down in a single motion and I shrieked. He brought it down again, again, again, again, and then he stopped. I was sobbing. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry!"

Dean put me on my feet, yanked my jeans up, and refastened them. Then he pulled me into a hug.

"Don't lie to me," he said. "I need to be able to trust you."

"Yes, Dean," I whispered, crying into his chest.


	9. Chapter 9 - Feeding the Fire

It was another two days before it wasn't searingly painful to release the flame. Bree said she'd be back when we could work again, and in the meantime, I was left to my own devices. With nothing to practice, Bobby, Sam, and Dean kept me busy with less useful activities. Bobby let me watch and even help a little while he worked on taking apart a car, Dean took me to the movies, and Sam showed me a couple of games on his computer. Sometimes I just watched TV.

At the end of the second day, Sam and Dean left in the Impala to go on a hunt. "Bobby," I said, after I'd said good-bye and returned to the garage where Bobby was taking apart some piece of an engine, "What happens when I can control myself?"

"Bree says you're almost there," Bobby said. "You just have to learn how to keep it locked away. Everything else you should be able to figure out on your own."

I fiddled with a bolt that was sitting on the end of the worktable. "But what happens when, you know, I'm there?"

"I guess we'll send you back to Knoxville and they can find a relative for you to live with."

"I don't have any relatives," I said quietly. I crouched down on the dirty floor of the garage and started twirling the bolt there. I looked around for something to add to it.

"They'll find you a place to stay, girl. You're not going to be alone."

I picked up two metal nuts and another bolt and started rolling all four across the floor, trying to see how far they would go. "Why can't I stay here?"

Bobby sighed. "It's not safe here."

I thought about that. "It seems like it is."

"Well, it's not, and you're not my kid. I wouldn't make a good dad for you anyway."

"Why not?"

"I just wouldn't," Bobby burst out, an unhappy look on his face.

I picked up the nuts from across the garage and wandered back to pick up the bolts. The nuts had definitely rolled farther. The bolts had just jittered and turned in circles.

"Can I go with Sam and Dean?" I asked.

Bobby sighed. "No. Their lives are even more dangerous than mine."

_Yeah, sure,_ I thought. _And I'm more dangerous, too. _Out loud, I said, "I can help."

"With those abilities of yours, you probably could, but they aren't going to take an eleven-year-old girl on the road with them. It's not safe."

I started twirling the bolt and the nut together, and then separated them, and then twirled them together again. "I'm not safe," I said.

Bobby looked at me. "I guess you're not."

"What do these go on?" I asked Bobby, holding up the bolt and the nut.

He looked relieved. "Here, let me show you. They hold these two pieces of metal together so that the insides don't fall out, and when you want the insides out, you just unscrew them…" He spent the rest of the afternoon explaining things about car engines to me.

Bree came back the next day. I looked up from washing dishes for Bobby when she came in. "I don't want any more lessons," I said, flat out.

She looked startled. "The child must learn how to lock away the flame so that it does not explode when she is not aware. The child must learn how to control flame she did not create."

"I'll figure it out myself," I said, turning back to my dishes. She walked softly over to me and set a gentle hand on my shoulder. I jerked my shoulder away. "And I killed my parents. I don't think that you can call me a child anymore."

"The child is upset," Bree said in a soothing tone, placing her hand back on my shoulder.

"Ya think?" I muttered. I slammed the plate I was washing into the sink.

Bree said nothing, just pressed my shoulder until I turned into her and surrounded me with her arms. I hugged her and sobbed into her soft, flowy dress. "They're going to get rid of me, as soon as I know how to control everything. I can't finish learning or they will make me leave."

Bree stroked my hair and said softly, "If the child does not learn how to control everything, she will be a danger to herself and others. She could accidentally hurt or kill someone else. Is that what she wants?"

"No," I whispered, clinging to her.

"Once the child has control, she can make her own decisions on what will happen. The child is not a victim of her fate. The child can influence her circumstances." Bree placed her soft, well-manicured hand under my chin and tilted my head up. "Yes?"

I swallowed. "Yes."

"Although not by threat of fire," Bree cautioned.

"I know," I said. I let go of Bree and wiped my nose with a napkin from the table.

"Then let us begin. The sooner she learns, the sooner the child will know her fate."

"Ok," I said. "I think I know how to lock away the flame."

Bree didn't let me show her right away. She ran me through all of the basic exercises first, breathing, lighting the wood, pulling the flame back into myself, shutting the flame away. "The child may explain to me her technique to remain in control while unconscious."

Excited to finally be able to talk to her about it, I said, "Well, the furnace didn't have a lock. It didn't have a way to stay latched. The door kept bulging open and then the flame would get out. I just need to lock it up." I pulled the nut and bolt out of my jeans pocket and showed it to her. "Like with these."

"Would not an actual lock be better? Something with a key?" Bree asked. "A lock with a key would not accidentally come unscrewed."

"Oh," I said. "Yes!"

We spent the rest of the afternoon practicing with the imagery of locking away the flame. As she was getting into her car to leave, I asked, "Bree, how do we test it?"

"Pentothal," Bree said, smiling at me. "Tomorrow, the child will practice with more flame than she created, although not as much as she first tried with. Once the child has that mastered, there will be a final test, during which the child will be anesthetized. The child is not to light any fires tomorrow until sundown when I will arrive."

I spent the next day with Bobby again, this time helping him in his library. Mostly, I was alphabetizing sections of his bookshelves while he answered phones and researched. He'd told me to be careful because his books were categorized in some manner that was specific to him, and he didn't want me messing up the categories. When I got bored of that, I read a book that Sam had picked up for me from a bookstore in town. Sundown couldn't get here fast enough.

When the sun started to finally go down, I started watching out the window for Bree's car. She finally pulled up right at dark and I ran out the door before she could get out of her car.

"The child is excited," Bree said, smiling. "How does the fire feel?"

I paused and considered. "There's pressure, but I'm not itching," I said. "I think that if I waited until bedtime, though…"

"I believe that pressure is enough. Let us begin. I will light a small fire." I followed her to the fire pit and watched her light a fire that was much smaller than the one Dean had lit for me. "The child must connect to it and pull it into herself, locking it into her furnace. If the fire is too much, the child must not fight it. The child must redirect it back into the fire pit."

I braced my feet below me, closed my eyes, and breathed out, extending my flame to touch the extra flame in the fire pit. Fire that I did not create felt different than fire that came from inside me, but it was still totally within my power to control. I breathed in and pulled.

The flame wooshed into me, and I wrestled it into my imaginary furnace. I slammed shut the door, latched it, locked it, and waited. I felt full. I felt itchy. The pressure grew and pushed, but I held the flame. I opened my eyes and exclaimed, "I did it!"

Bree smiled at me satisfactorily. "The child will release the fire and try again."

For the next three hours, Bree lit fires of a larger and larger size until we figured out that about one-third of the size of the fire pit was about what I could handle in addition to being full up within myself. "The child must be careful," Bree intoned. "The child must always have somewhere to redirect the fire if it is too much for her. The child can act as a conduit, but should not contain more than she can hold. If she does, she will lose control again."

"Yes, Bree," I said.

"Tomorrow will be the final test," Bree said. "The child will spend the day writing a paper on the use of her fire, and I will administer the final test in the evening."

I beamed. "Awesome," I said.

The next day, I sat at the table and stared at the paper. I couldn't decide if I should put into the paper how much I enjoyed the feeling of setting a fire, of burning things. I hadn't discussed it with Bree, though, and I thought that it might make her look at me differently if she knew that it actually felt good when I was playing with fire, like a back rub or a tickly massage, only all over my body. I didn't know why but I was worried it would make her, or Bobby, Dean, and Sam, think I was a bad person if they knew that one little detail. After all, it was scary and dangerous to them. If they knew it felt so good to me, I didn't know what they would think.

I took the paper to Bobby and showed it to him. He made corrections to some of my words and to how I said things. When he was done, I rewrote the whole thing and left it in the middle of the table to give to Bree when she got there.

**Jessie's Fire**

_My fire is contained within me in a furnace with a latch, a lock, and a key. My fire is like oil or a liquid and flows out of me to touch other fire or to set something on fire. Once I set something on fire, I can let go of the flame. Letting go of the flame makes me not connected to it any more. I get control of the fire by stretching out my fire again and touching the fire I set._

_To put out a fire, I touch an existing fire and then pull the fire back into me. I shove the fire into my furnace and lock it to keep it there. If the fire tries to overflow the furnace, I must redirect the fire somewhere outside of me or I will lose control._

_The fire is always growing in me. Letting the fire go makes it go down. The fire feels like pressure at the back of my head and in my temples. If I wait a long time before starting a fire, I will start to feel itchy. I should start a fire and push all of the fire in me into that fire once a day to keep the amount down._

_I lose control of the fire if I lose my temper, if I try to control too much fire, and if I don't let the fire go enough._

_Fire cannot burn me. The only way I am hurt by fire is if I try to contain it and it's too much for me. Then, it will burn its way out of my head and I will faint and be sick for days._

Now all that was left was to wait for the evening.


	10. Chapter 10 - Influencing Fate

I was lying on a cot in the garage again. Bree had said I had passed all tests and there was only the one to determine if I could maintain the fire while I was knocked out to go. She had brought a friend of hers, a nurse with coal-black hair and pale blue eyes, to administer the Pentothal that would knock me out. I had an IV in my arm. Bobby was armed with a fire extinguisher in case more fires than Bree could manage popped up after I was out.

"Count backwards from 100," the nurse instructed. I couldn't remember her name.

"99," I said. "98… 97…"

_I was surrounded by fire. It sang through me, poured from me. Everything was ablaze, but I wasn't. I was naked and surrounded by smoke, ash, and flame. Heat pounded through me and I reveled in it, felt it, pushed until the haze of pleasure faded. I got out of the bed and ran from the room. "Dean?" I yelled. "Sam?"_

_I ran down the hallway to a door with the number 261 on it. I pushed through the burning door, the flame never touching me. There were two beds, each with a burning lump in it. I screamed and tried to open myself to the flame, pull it back inside me, but nothing happened. The lump in the bed on the right sat up. Dean turned his burned face to me and grinned. Then Sam's lump rose to its feet and started to come towards me. I screamed again and turned to run. Dean's voice followed behind me, "Hunt you…" and his hand fell onto my shoulder._

I opened my eyes to a quiet garage. The nurse was putting away the medical supplies, and Bree leaned over, beaming at me. "The child has passed!" she said and hugged me.

I felt groggy and weird. I touched the furnace inside me and found it still closed, still locked, but full. "I passed?" I slurred. Bree nodded.

"The child has basic control."

Relief flooded me. I didn't know how worried I was about the outcome, about being able to control the flames, until it was over. I looked around for Bobby, but he wasn't in the garage any longer.

"Where's Bobby?" I asked. Bree looked uneasily at the door. I got to my feet unsteadily, made my way to the door, and opened it.

"… insane? She's eleven, Bobby! You don't knock out eleven-year-olds with Pentothal!" Dean yelled from about fifteen feet away.

"You do if the eleven-year-old is a pyrokenetic and you want to know whether she can control her fire when she's unconscious! Bree knows what she's doing."

Dean ran his hand through his hair and fought to control himself. ""Jesus, Bobby, couldn't you have warned us? I thought something had happened to her again. Scared the crap out of me finding you guys like that."

"Aside from being worried about what's going to happen to her when she's finished learning all this stuff, she's just fine. I'd never let anything happen to that girl while she's under my watch."

"Could she control it?" Sam asked, his back to me.

"She hadn't lost it yet when you two came barreling in there like bellowing elephants. Idjits!"

I cleared my throat. "I passed," I said.

Sam turned and his face broke out into a smile. He took the few steps to reach me and then gently hugged me. When he was done, Dean hugged me, and then Bobby hugged me.

"The child has basic control and can be trusted to maintain her control even while unconscious," Bree intoned.

"Thank you, Bree," I said. "Thank you so much for all of the help!" I hugged her, too.

We walked her and her nurse friend to Bree's car and said good-bye. Sam and Dean had brought a pizza back with them, and Bobby told me to go eat while they went into the library to talk.

Once in the kitchen, I put my back to the wall that was between the kitchen and the library and listened.

"I'll take her to the Sioux Falls Sheriff Department and they'll take care of starting the process of getting her back to her relatives," Bobby said.

"She doesn't have any relatives," Sam said.

"Her parents probably identified someone in their will to care for her, and if they didn't, she'll end up in foster care or with a distant relative."

"We can't let her go into foster care," Dean said. "I've heard horror stories, and Dad took us with him rather than do that to us."

"We were Dad's family, and we can't bring her with us," Sam said. "It's too dangerous. And Dean made that deal..." There was anger in his voice.

I grew more and more miserable as they talked. They were going to dump me back in Knoxville with some unsuspecting people. Sam and Dean weren't going to take me with them because I wasn't family. It was too dangerous, and there was some deal hanging over Dean's head. It seemed hopeless. Then I remembered what Bree had said about influencing my own fate. I took a deep breath and walked into the library.

"Hey," I said, interrupting the three men. "I'm not going back to Knoxville." They looked at me, surprised etched across all of their faces. "You try to send me to Knoxville and I'll run away. I'm not going back there."

"Listen, little girl," Dean started, but I turned my glare on him.

"No, you listen. If you do anything, and I mean anything, but take me with you and let me be a hunter, then I'll run away."

"No," Dean said.

"No," Sam said.

Bobby just shook his head.

"Why not?" I wailed. "I can help you! Your dad took you. You just said so!"

"You don't want this life. You don't know what you're signing up for," Dean said.

"I do," I insisted. "And I can control fire. My life is already not normal."

"You are not going to become a hunter," Sam said. "You need to go live with some normal people, some normal family, and grow up with a normal life.

"You can't tell me how to live my life," I objected. "And I want to go with you. I like you. I want to be with you. I won't be any trouble. I swear!"

Sam leaned down to me. "Jessie, I'm sorry. We like you too, but there are complications. You can't go with us."

I stared at the three of them, at the wall of resistance. "Fine," I said. "Whatever." I had warned them. I turned and left the room.

I ran up to my room and started shoving things into my backpack: clothes, the book Sam had bought me, my hoodie, the nut and bolt that I'd saved from the garage. It didn't take me long. I didn't have that much. Once I was done, I shoved the backpack under my bed and cried.

They didn't want me. My parents were dead and it was my fault, and now the people who had come to find me, who had rescued me from myself and helped me get my abilities under control didn't want me. It was the fire, I knew it. It was too scary, too dangerous, and I was going to be given to strangers, strangers who had no idea of the monster in their midst.

I couldn't let that happen.

I curled up on the bed and tried to plan my escape. I had clothes. I needed food. I needed money. Once I had those things, I could head to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming and live there indefinitely. Hell, if I got enough money, I'd be able to take a bus there. I remembered seeing money in Bobby's desk.

Dean knocked on my door and then opened it gently when I didn't answer. He came over and sat on my bed. I rolled over so that I didn't have to look at him. "Jessie," Dean said. "Come on, now. You don't get off that easy. Talk to me."

I stared sullenly at the wall, angry and not hiding it. "Come on, tell me what you're thinking."

_What the hell, why not?_ I thought. "You don't want me."

"Jessie, we do want you. We just can't have you," Dean said softly. "You've been with us for a month and you managed to worm your way into our hearts. We don't want to send you back to Knoxville. Don't you understand that this is killing us as much as it is you?"

I sat up and whirled around. "If you want me so much, then why are you getting rid of me? Why are you sending me off to strangers who don't even know what they are getting into? Why won't you keep me with you, let me help, let me learn to help?"

Dean put his hand on my shoulder. "Breathe, little girl. You're starting to glow."

I closed my eyes and cried while I tried to control my breathing. It didn't work so well, but the distraction made it so that I wasn't so angry any longer. After a couple of minutes, I opened my eyes again.

Dean sighed. "I've only got a year to live," he said. "Aside from all of the danger of the life we lead, we can't take you with us only to abandon you when that year is up."

I narrowed my eyes at him. "Why do you get to make that decision? Why don't I get a say? Why can't Sam just take care of me once you're gone? Doesn't he get a say?"

Sam stepped into the room then. "I do get a say, and I think that considering all circumstances, you need to go live with a normal family in a normal life, no matter how much joy you bring to us and how much we want you with us. The important thing is what is best for you, and we are not best for you."

"We get to make the decision because we're adults," Dean said. "We're responsible for your well-being. I promise you, Jessie, you're better off with a normal family."

I glared at them. I could see that they weren't going to give in. They'd decided. Fine, my plan it was. I dropped my face into a pout. "Well, once they've found a place for me, will you at least visit me?" I asked.

The two of them looked genuinely relieved. "Of course," Dean said.

"I wouldn't want it any other way," Sam said.

I waited until everyone was asleep that night and gathered some canned food, a can opener, a wicked-looking knife, and the money that was stored in the very back of Bobby's desk. I didn't sleep well at all. The next morning, I said good-bye to Sam and Dean before they got into the Impala and drove off for their next hunt.

Then it was time for me to go. I tossed my backpack into the cab of Bobby's truck and climbed in after it. He drove me to Sioux Falls. I was quiet the entire way. He pulled up in front of the police station and said, "Look at me."

I looked at him, tears in my eyes. "Listen, girl," he said. "I'd take you as my own if I could. I just can't."

"Ok, Bobby," I said softly, tears falling from my eyes. "You come visit me, ok? Sam and Dean said they would, too, and you guys are my family now, even if you don't want to be."

"I will. Now go in there and talk to the person at the front desk, just like we talked about."

"Bye, Bobby," I said. I slid out of the truck and walked into the police station. There was a reception desk right by the front door. I walked over to it and said, "Hi, is this the bus station?"

The man behind the desk looked startled. "No, this is the police station. The bus station is down on Maple Street."

"Thanks," I said. I looked out the glass front door of the building and saw Bobby's old truck out there. "Hey, can I use your bathroom?"

So, the man led me down the hallway to a ladies' room. When I finished, I went further into the building until I found another exit. Then I headed towards Maple Street.

I walked for an hour. I went inside and asked for a ticket to West Yellowstone, WY. The lady looked me up and down. "How old are you, dear?" she asked.

"Twelve," I said. "I'm going to meet my aunt for a week before I go back to school."

"Where's your mom?"

I looked around. There was an older woman sitting in one of the plastic seats watching the bus counter. I waved at her and she waved back with a slightly confused look on her face. "That's my grandma. She said I could buy my own ticket."

"Ok, dear. It's $183.14." I gulped and handed her ten of my twelve twenties. Oh god, they were going to be so pissed when they figured it out. She took my money and gave me change. Then she handed me my ticket, and I went and sat next to the older lady.

At 12:15, I got on the bus, and I didn't look back.


	11. Chapter 11 - Busted

It turned out the older lady was traveling in the same direction as I was, so I asked her if it was ok if I sat with her while we were on the bus together. She agreed and introduced herself as Margaret Brown. She told me I could call her Margie. She was on her way to visit her son in Idaho Falls because he'd just asked his girlfriend to marry him and she wanted to meet the girl. She'd talked to her on the phone, but that wasn't enough to know if she liked the girl. Margie was a talker and she filled my head with minutiae about her life from the time we sat down on the bus until our first half an hour break at Rapid City, seven hours later.

By then, I wasn't so sure I wanted to sit next to her anymore, but if I could continue to maintain the illusion that I was related to her in some way, at least for the apathetic eyes of the bus driver and other bus employees, then I'd be better off. We got off the bus and I spent one of my precious dollars on a hamburger from the McDonald's near the station. I didn't want to have to break into my canned food until it was entirely necessary, and there was the possibility that doing something out of the ordinary, like eating from a can at a bus station, would get me noticed.

Half an hour later, I was back on the bus, seated next to Margie. She was unusually quiet until the bus started moving. Then she said, "Honey, are you sure you're just going to visit your aunt in Yellowstone?"

"Yeah," I said. "She's camping there with my Uncle Fred and my cousins. Mom said that it would be a lot of fun, but I think she just wants some alone time with Dad." I was pulling on past experience. My mom had sent me to go camping with a friend of hers and her kids in the Smokies the previous year for a week before school started because she had wanted some time with my dad. When I'd come back, they were much happier than when I'd left.

She looked at me consideringly. "You've been spending a lot of time watching your back, dear. In Sioux Falls, you kept your eyes on the door most of the time, and you've been spending a lot of time looking at the cars passing us on the road. Each time one gets close to us, you tense up until you get a look at it. Are you sure you aren't running away?"

I couldn't even fool a complete stranger. "I'm not. I'm going to visit my aunt," I insisted. I vowed to stop trying to watch the cars out the window.

She tilted her head slightly, "All right, dear," she said, but I knew she was suspicious. I started trying to think of something to tell her, but I couldn't come up with anything, and I knew that if I came up with something that wasn't believable, it would just make things worse.

She started talking about herself again, her church and some trip they'd gone on to help the poor babies in Mexico. I could tell she was trying to distract me, and I was pretty sure that I would need to make a run for it at our next stop, or she was going to turn me in to the officials. I hadn't traveled all this way just to get turned in a little further west.

Three hours later, we pulled into the Buffalo station for our next half hour break while they fueled and cleaned the bus. Margie got off of the bus first and I followed slowly, carrying my backpack with me. I wasn't sure whether I was going to have to make a run for it.

I hefted the backpack over my shoulder and walked into the station. Margie was headed straight towards a security guard. Ok, run it was. I turned around to go back out the door and saw Sam and Dean headed towards me from the busses. I turned back around and Margie was following the security guard towards me.

Shit! I turned again and ran, hoping to flank them and get out of the building before any of them could catch me.

I didn't get very far. The security guard was practically useless, but Sam and Dean were both in great shape. One minute I was running, dodging around people, luggage, and chairs, and the next, Sam had grabbed me from behind and lifted me up.

I kicked, trying to land a hit on his legs or shin. "Let me go! Let me go!" I was mad, so very mad. I had tried so hard and they had still found me. They were going to send me back. Pressure pounded at my temples and at the base of my skull.

Sam set me down on my feet, holding onto me, and crouched next to me. "Quiet. Breathe. You're glowing and we're in a building full of people."

I stopped fighting and looked around. Dean had stopped the security guard and Margie and was talking to them. I saw him flash his FBI badge. People were still milling about, but now we had a crowd around us, a crowd that was in danger because of me. I burst into tears. It was hopeless. I couldn't get even get mad about it. "Breathe," Sam soothed, rubbing my back gently. Then he stood up and took my hand, leading me over to Dean, the security guard, and Margie.

"I was suspicious because she just wouldn't stop acting like she thought someone was chasing her," Margie said. "No eleven-year-old does that when they're on their way to go camping with their aunt. She was also overly quiet. I have two children. I know how children act and I knew something was amiss."

"Thank you for taking care of her on the bus, Mrs. Brown, and please have every assurance that we'll get her back to her parents right away," Dean said.

"Thank you, Agent Young," Margie said. The security guard shook hands with him.

Sam stepped forward, pushing me in front of him and placing a hand on my shoulder. "Thank Mrs. Brown, Jessie," he instructed.

I turned and glared at him. Thank Margie for turning me into the security guard. Hell, no! But then his eyes narrowed, his nostrils flared, and his hand tightened on my shoulder. I got nervous. I turned back around to Margie, who was waiting expectantly. "Thank you, Margie," I said, forcing a smile.

Margie smiled back and put her hand on my head. "You'll be better off with your parents," Margie said, smiling condescendingly and clearly pleased with herself. My head pounded as I realized she would probably tell this story full of self-congratulatory pride, the tale of how she saved a run-away from certain death.

She jerked her hand off my head suddenly. "You're quite hot, dear," she said. "Are you feeling well?"

Sam's grip didn't loosen at all. "She's fine. She just needs to calm down a little. She's overheating from all the running." He gave me a little shake, and I quickly closed my eyes and started trying to get control over the panic and anger that was coursing through me.

Margie turned to head towards the bathrooms and the security guard went back to his rounds. As soon as they were both gone, Sam and Dean started moving towards the doors. Sam had a firm grip on my shoulder, and Dean reached down and took my hand.

"I'm can walk without being held onto," I objected, trying to yank my hand out of Dean's.

He rounded on me and asked through clenched teeth, "Do you really want to push me right now?"

The blood drained from my face. "No," I whispered.

They walked me out to the Impala, where Sam held open the car door and Dean ushered me in. I glanced briefly at the door on the opposite side of the car, considering how long it would take me to get there and run. Dean took my chin in his hand and forced me to meet his eyes. "No more running. You don't even want to try it, believe me," he said.

I tried to jerk my chin out of his hand, but he wouldn't let me. I glared at him. "Are you still going to turn me into the police?" I asked.

"No," he said. "You win." Then he let me go, and I sat there stunned as Sam shut the car door and they both got in.

Dean sped off down the road, even faster than he normally drives. Sam was stiff in the front seat, and I sat in the back seat staring at my hands in my lap. "Put your damn seatbelt on," Dean growled out after a quick look in his rearview mirror. With shaking hands, I fastened my seatbelt.

I didn't know what to think. I didn't know if they were telling me the truth about not sending me back to Knoxville, but I guessed if they were going to do that, they would have let the security guard have me. Sam cleared his throat and I jumped a little. I had no idea what to expect. They were both clearly furious with me. I swallowed and said timidly, "So, where are we going?"

Sam ground out, "To a motel," without turning around.

"You guys are scaring me," I said, softly.

"We're scaring you? We're scaring you?!" Dean exploded. "What the hell do you think you did to us? Bobby drops you off at the police station, expecting you to turn yourself in like you said you would. A couple hours later, he hasn't seen any sign of you or social services arriving or anything, and he goes in to check on you, and you're gone, vanished. No one even knows what he's talking about. It's not until the reception guy gets back from lunch before he gets some idea of where you've gone. He high-tails it down to the bus station and has to question everyone there to find out that you got on a bus to go to West Yellowstone! Alone!"

By this time, I had pushed myself so far back in the seat that I could feel the springs. "I was perfectly safe on the bus," I said. I wished vaguely that the back seat would swallow me.

"Did we know that? Did we know you'd gotten yourself some sort of fill-in grandma? Hell, by then, Sam and I didn't even know you were on the god-damned bus. We were in the middle of Kansas thinking that you were on your way safe and sound to Knoxville, and then we get a call from Bobby. How do you think that made us feel?"

Something inside me snapped. "How did it make you feel?" I snarled. "You were going to abandon me to strangers. How the hell do you think that made me feel? You wouldn't even listen to me! Just kicked me out of your life like I don't even matter!"

"Whoa," Sam said. "Slow down, Jessie."

"Slow down? Slow down?!" I said, and then I realized that while I hadn't even noticed, pressure had been building in my head. Now suddenly, my head felt like it was going to burst. "Oh, no," I said. "Oh fuck." I imagined the furnace. I checked the lock, but it wasn't there and the furnace door was bulging against its latch.

Dean was already pulling over. I tried to calm my breathing, but it didn't work. I was too panicked over the fact that I was losing control to calm myself down. I unbuckled my seatbelt, and as soon as the car stopped, I shoved my door open. I screamed as I stepped out of the car, aimed the flame at a nearby stand of trees, and pushed.

The tree stand exploded. Bits of fiery branches and leaves went flying, and flame whooshed up into the sky.

I fell to my knees. Sam was already out of the car. "Can you pull it back into yourself?"

I shook my head, panting. "No, too much."

"Can you pull part of it into you?"

I shook my head again. "No. It's everything or nothing."

"All right, let's get you into the car. We'll call the fire department on our way."

Dean drove off, speeding down the highway, and I sat in the back of the car, seatbelt back on, and cried. My head pounded. Sam called 911 and reported the fire. No one said anything for a while, and eventually my head stopped pounding as much.

"Sorry," I said, pulling my feet up so that I was sitting with my legs crossed and under me. I rested my elbow on my knee and my chin on my hand.

"Listen, Jessie, I get it," Dean said. "You didn't want to go back to Knoxville and we weren't listening to you. You did the only thing you could think of, you ran away. The problem is, little girl, that what you were doing was manipulating us. You were lying to us. You let us think that you had accepted what we told you to do and then you went off and did what you wanted. You scared the crap out of all of us. We had no idea if you were ok or not."

"What was I supposed to do? I told you I was going to do it. You didn't listen to me, and so I did what I said I would," I said, picking my chin up off my hand. "I warned you. I said I would do that."

"Sam, talk to her," Dean said, obviously frustrated.

"Look, we get that, we do," Sam said. "The problem is that you can't spend your life with us manipulating us and lying to get what you want. It's accept what we say or argue with us until we agree. Instead you lied to us and then punished us by running off. I have no doubt that you knew how worried and scared we would be for you as soon as we found out you were gone. You lied to us. Again. You used our concern for you against us. That was a sorry thing to do."

Tears were running down my face even though I was still mad. I could see his point, and yeah, I had been thinking _I'll show them_. "I didn't think I had a choice," I said. "I'm sorry that I scared you."

"We can't trust you now," Dean said. "You've proven to us that we can't believe what you say and that if we tell you to do something, you might agree out loud, but you will just go off and do what you want to do." He pulled off of the highway into an old motel, parked in front of the office, and turned around to look at me. "If you're going to stay with us, there are rules you have to follow, and if we can't trust you to follow them, then you can't come with us. You sit there and think about that while we go and pay for a room."

I pulled my feet out from under me and rested my chin on my knees. I'd kind of run my parents ragged in a similar way. They'd tell me to do something, and I'd agree and then go do what I wanted. The difference was that with my parents, I rarely got caught, and the stakes weren't anywhere near as high.

Of course, when I did get caught, they'd spank me.

Dean came out to drive the car to a parking spot, while Sam walked to the room. Dean didn't say anything to me until he parked. "Get your bag and get inside. Put your nose in the corner. Don't even think of disobeying me."

"Ok, Dean," I said, and I did exactly what he said. I waited in the corner while one of them set up the roll-away bed and they got their stuff settled. I shifted from one foot to the other, nervous and anxious. Sam told me multiple times to stop fidgeting, but he didn't seem angry about it, at least.

"Ok," Dean finally said after about an eternity. "Come here."


	12. Chapter 12 - Family

_Thanks for all the great reviews. This is the last chapter of this story. I'll be starting the next one soon although I'm not sure whether it will be Season 3 or Season 8. Thanks for reading!_

* * *

Suddenly, I wasn't so anxious to get out of the corner. I turned around slowly to see Dean sitting on the edge of the bed with a wood-backed hairbrush next to him. Sam was sitting at the table by the window looking at his computer. Dean raised his eyebrows at me, and I considered running, but reconsidered when I remembered that running in the bus station hadn't gotten me very far.

"Jessie, do not make me come get you," Dean warned. I sighed and dragged my feet over to stand in front of him. He looked me in the eye. "Tell me why I'm spanking you."

Something flared inside me. "Because you're mean," I grumbled. "And you like to hit kids." The minute it was out of my mouth, I wished I hadn't said it. My eyes grew wide and I covered my mouth with my hand. I heard Sam choke behind me, but Dean just nodded.

"Fine, we'll discuss it when I'm done," he said. He reached forward, unsnapped my jeans, and pushed them down on my thighs before pulling me over his lap. The hairbrush was resting by my head.

"I'm sorry, Dean. I'm sorry," I insisted. He didn't say anything, just brought his hand down on my butt, hard, over and over. I squirmed and kicked, but he held me there and spanked me until I started crying. Then he stopped.

"You ready to stop being a smart ass now?" he growled.

"Yes, Dean," I said, I wiped my face with the bedspread.

"Why am I spanking you?" he asked again.

Somehow it was worse from the position of being over his lap, but I said, "Because I lied to you and I manipulated you. I told you I was going to do what you said but then I went and did what I wanted." I took a deep breath, trying to hold in the tears, but I failed. "And now you can't trust me," I wailed.

Dean said, "That's right, and I'm going to make sure that you remember it. Hand me the hairbrush."

I picked up the hairbrush and handed it to him, sniffling. I grabbed the bedspread, wishing that I wasn't over his lap, that I hadn't disregarded him. Then he brought down the brush and fire ignited across my butt. I was crying again instantly and unable to count the number of times the brush fell. Finally he stopped and helped me to my feet. I pulled my jeans back up.

Then Sam said, "Jessie, come here." My heart sank, but I turned around and walked over to him. He had closed his laptop and was frowning at me. "You have to answer to me, too."

"But Dean just spanked me!" I objected. Sam shook his head.

"I don't care," he said. He pulled unsnapped my jeans again and pulled me over his lap. He brought his bare hand down on my already sore butt.

"You need to think about how your actions affect other people, young lady," Sam said, his hand falling again and again. "You cannot go around the world doing what you want with no regard to how the people around you will feel. You cannot manipulate people or lie to them to get what you want. It's not allowed. You scared both of us. You hurt both of us."

"I'm sorry, Sam," I cried.

"We are the adults. We make the decisions. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sam," I said. I was hugging his leg and crying. He stopped spanking me and put me on my feet. I pulled my jeans back up a second time, wincing when they touched my sore butt.

"Back in the corner," Sam said. I dragged my feet back into the corner and leaned my head against the wall.

After a few minutes, Dean called me back out of the corner. I walked over to him and stood in front of him. He pointed a finger at me. "No more lying. No more manipulation."

From behind me, Sam said, "You will do what we say and let us make the decisions."

I nodded, looking at Dean with tears in my eyes. "All right," he said. "Come here." He took me into his arms and hugged me close to him. "You can stay with us. It's where you belong anyway."

Cuddled up to Dean, I was suddenly exhausted. It had been a long and hard day. I started to doze off in Dean's arms. "Jessie," Dean said. "Come on, wake up. You've got to get ready for bed."

I groaned but rolled out of his arms and staggered into the bathroom. When I came out dressed in a nightshirt, Sam had pulled the covers back on my bed. I got into the bed and Sam tucked the covers up around my chin and stroked my hair. "You're family now, Jessie," he said. He kissed me on the head and I rolled over to fall asleep.

_Worth it_, I thought as I drifted off. _Totally worth it_.

Dean woke me by shaking me the next morning. "Let's get moving, sunshine," he said. I groaned and climbed out of the bed, a little anxious to prove to them that I was good. "Shower," Dean said.

I slowly walked into the bathroom and turned the shower on. When I was done showering, I brushed my teeth and got dressed. I didn't seem any worse for wear.

When I came out of the bathroom, Dean was shoving my clothes from yesterday into my backpack and Sam was on the phone. "Yeah, Bobby. No, we're headed back there. Yeah, you can talk to her." He held the cell phone out to me.

I blanched but took the phone from him. "Hi, Bobby," I said into the phone.

"Damn it, girl. You scared the crap out of me," Bobby said. Dean carried our bags out to the car, and Sam started packing up his laptop.

I dug the toe of my sneaker into the carpet. "Sorry, Bobby," I said. "I didn't mean to. I didn't know what else to do, but Sam and Dean told me it was mean and manipulative, and that I lied to get my way, and I'm not going to do that anymore." I wondered briefly if I'd ever hear the end of this.

"You stole over two hundred dollars from my desk," he said. "You wanna explain that?"

I swallowed. I had kind of forgotten about that detail. "Sorry, Bobby. I kind of used that to pay for the bus ticket. I can give you what I have left when we get back. It's a little more than forty dollars. I just, well, I didn't want to be hitchhiking…"

"You don't steal, girl. You ask for what you need," Bobby said.

"But, you wouldn't have given it to me," I objected. "And you would have known something was up."

"Then you shouldn't have taken it. Put Dean on the phone," Bobby said.

_Oh no_, I thought. "I'm sorry, Bobby. I can pay you back or make it up to you somehow, can't I? Please?"

"Put Dean on the phone," Bobby repeated, punctuating each word. I dropped my head and handed the cell phone to Dean.

"Yeah, Bobby?" Dean said, taking the phone from me. "Oh, so that's how she got…" I scooted out the door and went to stand by the Impala, hoping that being out of the room would make it less likely that I'd have to pay this price right now.

No such luck. A couple minutes later, Dean stuck his head out of the room, said my name, and pointed to the spot of the ground in front of him. I sighed and dragged my feet back into the room.

Once I reached him, he grabbed my arm and looked me in the eye. "Do I even have to tell you what you did wrong?"

I shook my head. "I stole from Bobby," I whispered.

"It's a good thing that you were actually safer and easier to find because you bought that bus ticket or I'd be taking off my belt right now." My eyes got wide, my face went red, and I stared at him in horror.

"I'm not going to spank you again. I think you've probably had enough. Instead, you're on restriction," he said. "That means no books or TV and you ask before you leave our presence. When we get back to Bobby's you're going to be doing chores for him, a lot of chores, with no complaint or you'll get the spanking that I'm not giving you right now, and you'll still have to do the chores. You got it?"

"Yes, Dean," I said. I glanced at Sam, but the look on his face meant that I was getting no quarter from him. I looked at the ground. "If I can't read, what am I supposed to do while we're in the car?"

"You need us to find you something to do?" Sam asked. "Because I have some ideas, starting with you thinking about what you did wrong and how you're never going to do it again."

I swallowed. That seemed like a trap, so I said, "No, that's ok."

"You sure?" Sam asked.

"Yes," I whispered.

"All right," Dean said. "Let's get moving."

I got into the car and fastened the seatbelt. Dean cranked up his music and we were on our way back to Bobby's.

I stared out the window for a while and thought. A really happy thought occurred to me. "Does this mean I don't have to go to school anymore?"

"What?" Dean asked. "No."

"Well, if I'm going to be coming with you while you're hunting, then I can't exactly be enrolled in school." This was the best idea I'd had in a while.

Sam turned around in his seat and looked at me. "Ever hear of homeschooling?"

I narrowed my eyes and regarded him warily. "Yeah," I said.

"All we have to do is fill out a form excusing you from public school and identifying me as the teacher and we're all set. They even have to loan you the textbooks. All we need is a birth certificate and a couple of witnesses."

"So you're going to teach me?"

"Yes," Sam said.

"There's no one better," Dean said.

"I don't have my birth certificate," I said. "It probably burned in the fire, and if we try to register me here, the police will come after me."

"Bobby's working on that," Dean said. "He's calling in some favors."

Heat and shame suffused me as I realized how much I owed them. They'd rescued me in the forest and they'd taught me how to control my gift. Then, they were letting me stay with them, and now Bobby was calling in a favor to get me a birth certificate so that I could. I suddenly felt really guilty about how I'd been acting. My stomach hurt and I felt like crying, but I didn't want to do it where they could see.

I needed to distract myself. I reached down and dug into my backpack, pulling out the book that Sam had bought me. Just as I remembered that I wasn't supposed to be reading, Sam reached back and plucked the book out of my hands without saying a word.

So, I scooted over from the middle where I was sitting to the passenger side of the car and pulled my legs up on the seat with me. I hid my face in my knees and cried as quietly as I could, hoping that Dean wouldn't see me because he was driving and Sam wouldn't see me because I was behind him.

The next thing I knew, Dean was pulling over. They both got out of the car, and Sam opened the door on my side. I scooted away from it so I wouldn't fall out, and Sam slid in.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" he asked as Dean opened the door on the other side of the car and got in the back seat with me too.

I didn't know how to put it into words, so I just sobbed harder. Dean pulled me into his arms and Sam rubbed my back while I cried against Dean's chest. Finally, I said, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I've been so bad. You guys have done so much for me and I've been terrible to you."

"Shh," Dean said. "Shh. It's ok. We all love you, and we want you in our lives or you wouldn't be here. You're worth it."

"You're worth every bit of trouble you've given us so far and more," Sam said, a smile in his voice. "You've given me a niece and Dean a daughter."

I stopped crying at that news. "What do you mean?"

"The favor that Bobby is calling in is going to give you a new identity. You're Dean's daughter, Miss Jessie Elizabeth Winchester," Sam smirked.

"Why is that funny?" I asked, pulling away from Dean a little and craning my head to look at Sam.

"Well, according to the differences in your ages, Dean would have had you when he was 17, and have gotten your mom pregnant when he was 16."

Dean scowled and said, "Shut up."

I hugged him tighter and whispered into his ear, "Thank you." He blushed.

"All right, let's get back moving. We've got about seven hours of driving ahead of us," Dean said, and both of them got back into the front seat.

It was official. I was family now.


End file.
